Salesforce.com Inc is planning to add as many as 1,500 jobs in Ireland over five years, in one of the largest such expansions in the history of the state.
The San Francisco-based software maker, which now employs more than 1,000 people in Ireland, laid out its Irish expansion plans Friday in Dublin. Bloomberg News first reported the figure yesterday. The company, in a joint announcement with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, unveiled a plan to build a “Salesforce Tower” in the city.
The software maker’s planned hiring spree in Ireland comes amid a broader push to ensure that the company’s strong growth continues. International expansion has been paramount to Salesforce, which generates most of its revenue in the US The attempt to diversify from its home market comes as the company’s signature cloud software for sales teams is seeing slowing growth because of its saturation in the market.
Salesforce also pledged in June to spend $2.5bn to spur sales in the UK, its largest European market, over the next five years. The funds will go to hire new employees, build another UK data centre and expand office space. The leader in customer-relations management software said in April that it would invest $2.2bn in its French business over the next five years.
For Ireland, the news will ease concern that recent high-profile tax cases could hurt investment. Perrigo Co Plc told investors last month that it faced an Irish tax demand for €1.6bn ($1.8bn), the second-largest in the country’s history. Moreover, the European Commission has ordered Ireland to recover 13bn euros in tax arrears from Apple Inc.
The new Salesforce development will be based in Dublin’s “Silicon Docks,” close to the operations of Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc, the company said.