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Workday, an enterprise software that manages payroll and human resources management for thousands of leading companies, suffered a major outage on Friday, joining Microsoft in an outage this week.
The platform manages the services of 11,500 companies.
“Workday is currently unavailable,” the platform reported when users tried to access it. “We are experiencing a service interruption. Your service will be restored as quickly as possible.”
“We apologize for the inconvenience. If you are a Workday customer and need additional assistance, please contact the Workday administrator within your organization. Otherwise, please check back later,” the message continues.
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In this photo illustration the logo of the American software company Workday Inc. is displayed on a smartphone. Workday experienced an outage on Friday, with customers still unable to access the platform on Saturday. (Timon Schneider/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Retail giants including Walmart and Target are among the major retailers potentially affected.
Workday’s customer base also includes giants like Netflix, Salesforce, PNC Bank, Chipotle, Southwest Airlines, General Electric and Nasdaq.
Additionally, the platform serves many government agencies, including the the cities of Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, Charlotte and Denver, as well as federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Energy.
Workday also lists NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory among its customers.
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The NASA logo is displayed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory October 15, 2025 in La Cañada Flintridge, California. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is listed as a Workday customer. (Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Downdetector, a website that tracks digital outages, first reported a spike of nearly 3,000 Workday issues shortly after 5 p.m. Friday.
“Some of our customers are experiencing a service interruption and we are working urgently to investigate and resolve the issue,” a Workday spokesperson said in a statement to FOX LiveNOW.
“We sincerely apologize for the difficulties this causes for affected customers,” the spokesperson added.
Workday has not provided an estimate of when services will return.
Signage is displayed near the receptionist’s desk at the Workday Inc. office in San Francisco, California, United States, on Thursday, January 10, 2019. Workday creates applications that help businesses perform mundane tasks such as managing payroll, tracking expenses, tracking (Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The company told the San Francisco Chronicle that the disruption occurred after discovering a problem while testing backup systems.
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This is the second major business software outage to occur in recent days after Microsoft experienced a massive global shutdown that affected its widely adopted Outlook and Teams email and messaging platforms.
FOX Business reached out to Workday for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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