Article Summary
- LinkedIn is set to cut 716 jobs across its operations as it re-strategizes to adapt to the changing economic landscape and consumer behaviours.
- The Microsoft-owned company will also be phasing out InCareer, its local jobs app in China, by August 9, 2023.
Professional social networking company, LinkedIn, has announced plans to lay off 716 of its employees globally. This represents about 4% of its workforce, which is put at 20,000.
The announcement is coming barely 4 months after LinkedIn’s parent company, Microsoft announced that it was cutting 10,000 jobs, or nearly 5% of its global workforce, in January.
LinkedIn’s CEO, Ryan Roslansky, in a letter to the company’s employees, explained that while the company was making meaningful progress in creating economic opportunities for its members and customers, the company had been seeing shifts in customer behaviour and slower revenue growth.
He said this necessitated the need to adapt its strategy in order to make the company’s vision a reality.
Change of strategy
While highlighting the changes that the company will be implementing to adapt to the economic realities, Roslansky in the letter to LinkedIn’s employees said:
- “Over the years we’ve had to make hard decisions to ensure we were setting the company up to deliver on our vision, and I’m sharing one of those decisions today. As we guide LinkedIn through this rapidly changing landscape, we are making changes to our Global Business Organization (GBO) and our China strategy that will result in a reduction of roles for 716 employees.
- “Our colleagues who are impacted by this announcement have all made invaluable contributions to our company. I want to recognize the impact this decision has on the lives of those individuals. And I want all of you to know that the entire leadership team and I are dedicated to helping our colleagues during this transition and ensuring that they are treated with the care and respect they deserve.
- “If your role is directly impacted by this decision, you will receive a calendar invitation within the next hour for a meeting with a leader from your team and a representative from our Global Talent Organization (GTO).”
Roslansky said LinkedIn will also be phasing out InCareer, its local jobs app in China, by August 9, 2023. He noted that though InCareer experienced some success in the past year thanks to the company’s strong China-based team, it also encountered fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate.
InCareer was launched in December 2021 after LinkedIn announced it was shutting down its main service in China. At that time, it attributed the decision to shut down LinkedIn China to “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements.”
