LinkedIn layoffs: Microsoft-owned company to fire 716 employees, shut down China-focused job search app

LinkedIn is set to cut 716 jobs and close down its China-focused job application. The move by the Microsoft-owned company comes amid a weakening global economic outlook and a drop in demand. Although LinkedIn has grown revenue every quarter for the last year, it has joined a host of major technology companies in laying off workers, including its parent company, Microsoft. LinkedIn employs around 20,000 employees, which takes translates to job cuts of around 3.5 per cent. 

LinkedIn generates income through ad sales and subscriptions to recruiting and sales professionals using the network to find potential employees. CEO Ryan Roslansky wrote a letter to employees stating that the job cuts were aimed at streamlining the company's operations and would remove layers to make faster decisions.

Although the China-focused job application will be closed, LinkedIn will still have a presence in China to assist companies operating there to hire and train employees outside the country.

In the past six months, over 2,70,000 tech jobs worldwide have been cut, with large companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google parent company Alphabet accounting for the bulk of the layoffs.

Microsoft, which purchased LinkedIn for $26 billion in 2016, has announced around 10,000 job cuts in recent months, costing $1.2 billion.

Microsoft laid off around 10,000 employees earlier this year. The employees fired in early 2023 were from the supply chain, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things. Apart from Microsoft, other tech giants like Amazon, Meta and Google have also fired employees. Meta has fired 21,000 employees since late last year. Google announced layoffs of 12,000 employees in January 2023. Amazon has also announced two rounds of layoffs so far, leading to the firing of 27,000 employees. Most of the layoffs in the tech industry have been attributed to the company's financials. 

With inputs from agencies.

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