The online recruitment-offering site LinkedIn on Monday announced it would be terminating the jobs of 716 employees as well as shutting down its China-focused job application.
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky wrote a letter to employees, informing them about the job cuts. He cited trimming headcount in the sales, operations and support teams to streamline the company’s operations and remove flab to make quicker decisions.
“With the market and customer demand fluctuating more, and to serve emerging and growth markets more effectively, we are expanding the use of vendors,” said Roslansky in the letter.
He added that the changes would result in the creation of 250 new jobs and those laid off would be eligible to apply for those roles.
As for its China operations, the company said it will be phasing out its InCareeers app from the country by August 9. LinkedIn had decided to withdraw from mainland China in 2021 citing a ‘challenging environment’ but the final nail in the coffin came two years later.
“Despite our initial progress, InCareer faced fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate, which ultimately led us to the decision of discontinuing the service,” the company told users of the website.
Despite witnessing an increase in revenue each quarter last year, the Microsoft-owned platform is joining the likes of other tech giants in laying off employees.
LinkedIn’s previous round of firings
Notably, in February earlier this year, after Microsoft announced plans to lay off around 10,000 employees, a significant amount of firing took place in the recruitment department of LinkedIn as well.
While the numbers were not confirmed at the time, several employees took to social media platforms to lament the sudden firing.
LinkedIn’s ex-staff member Nicole Zawacki (who was employed as “diversity, inclusion and belonging sourcing lead”) wrote that it will take a “little time” for her to process.
“Today I’m taking a little time to myself to process, but if anyone has any positions within Talent Acquisition or your Diversity team, or know of someone who does, I would sincerely appreciate any advice,” Zawacki posted.
The tech sector has witnessed a bloodbath over the last one and a half years. Amazon led the pack in firings by laying off almost 27,000 workers worldwide. Facebook owner Meta has terminated 21,000 jobs while Google’s parent company Alphabet has laid off as many as 12,000 workers.
(With inputs from agencies)
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