Cary’s SAS cuts 300 positions companywide in workforce realignment
SAS Institute, the prominent North Carolina analytics software provider, cut 300 positions across its entire workforce last week in a move the company framed as redirecting resources toward higher growth areas like cloud computing, sales and product development.
“We are always focused on the best path forward for the business, aligning our resources with customer needs, strategic priorities and sustainable growth, so we will not speculate on any further changes,” company spokesperson Trent Smith wrote in an email Friday to The News & Observer.
Smith said impacted employees can apply for open jobs within SAS, noting the company has “several hundred” available positions globally.
SAS didn’t share specifics on the location of these layoffs. The company reports more than 400 offices worldwide, with its main campus in Cary. It is the ninth-largest employer in Wake County, state records show but had been No. 5 on this list as recently as 2018. The Cary headquarters had approximately 5,000 workers earlier this decade.
“Over the years through natural attrition and conservative hiring, our headcount has gone down incrementally,” company spokesperson Shannon Heath told The N&O in early 2023.
Betting on Viya
SAS is days away from its official 50th anniversary. On July 1, 1976, the company took responsibility for customer contracts that had been under a statistical analysis software research project at North Carolina State University.
Led by cofounder and CEO Jim Goodnight, it grew to dominate the software analytics sector. Corporations, national governments and major universities paid every year to run its predictive programs.
SAS today counts 90% of Fortune 100 companies as customers. A privately held company, it consistently records more than $3 billion in annual revenue. Yet after posting 8% sales growth in 2023, the company didn’t include this metric in its most recent annual report.
Parts of the company have grown faster. Last year, it recorded a 20% sales increase in its SAS Viya platform, which uses AI and cloud-based services to analyze troves of data. SAS also reported 22% growth in managed cloud services.
The North Carolina company has also invested in artificial intelligence. In 2023, SAS committed $1 billion over three years on developing AI solutions through Viya.
This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 9:39 AM.
