News
LinkedIn Lays Off 716 Employees
- By Kurt Mackie
- May 10, 2023
The Microsoft-owned LinkedIn careers site described plans to cut 716 personnel in a Monday announcement.
As part of the job cuts, the company is ending its Global Business Organization, with the existing Product and Engineering teams taking up the slack.
LinkedIn also is curtailing its business approach in China by eliminating its InCareer jobs app "by August 9, 2023." Going forward, LinkedIn's work in China will instead focus on "assisting companies operating in China to hire, market, and train abroad."
Despite the overall layoffs, LinkedIn still plans to hire "more than 250 new roles for specific segments of our operations, new business and account management teams starting on May 15." This approach was described as "aligning our teams for growth."
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky described the layoffs as a hard decision to address a rapidly changing business landscape. The macroeconomic environment for LinkedIn's fiscal-year 2024 is expected to "remain challenging," he added, and so the company will "continue to manage our expenses as we invest in strategic growth areas."
Back in February, LinkedIn cut an undisclosed number of its talent acquisition team. That cut, as well as the present one, are occurring during a time of low unemployment in the United States, with jobs still getting added during a recession. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (PDF download) reported 253,000 more nonfarm jobs were added in April, which is about half the January jobs addition count.
Microsoft in January had announced a 10,000 jobs cut to take place through March 2024, citing inflationary pressures, but it's unclear if LinkedIn's cuts were related. Microsoft's fiscal-year 2023 Q3 earning report, released in April, showed LinkedIn delivering an 8% increase in revenue.
LinkedIn's layoff was reported in a Tuesday LinkedIn News post, which tracks layoffs more generally.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.