LinkedIn Slashes Over 700 Jobs, Closes China App Amid ‘Evolving Market’

The logo for LinkedIn Corporation is shown in Mountain View, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2013. Robert Galbraith/Reuters

Employment platform LinkedIn has announced it is slashing hundreds of jobs and phasing out its app in China as part of a “streamlining” process amid declining revenue.

Ruiqi Chen, editor at LinkedIn News, announced the move on May 8, noting that the platform plans to reduce roles across its sales, operations, and support teams.

LinkedIn will also open 250 new roles to invest in specific segments, new business, and account management, Chen said.

Founded in 2002, LinkedIn has offices in 36 cities globally and about 20,000 employees, according to its official website.

CEO Ryan Roslansky also announced the decision to slash jobs at the company in an email to all LinkedIn employees, citing an “evolving market” and a shift in customer behavior along with slower revenue growth as reasons for the cuts.

“Last week, we celebrated our 20th birthday by reflecting on the pride we all feel in the company we’ve built, and looking forward to the opportunity and responsibility we have in front of us,” the email read. “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.”

‘Evolving Market’

The CEO added that employees affected by the decision have “all made invaluable contributions to our company” and will receive dedicated help during the “transition.”

Roslansky noted that employees who lost their jobs would receive a calendar invitation to attend a meeting with their team leader and a representative from LinkedIn’s Global Business Organization (GBO).

Employees based in the United States who are eligible for benefits will receive severance pay, continued health coverage, and career transition services, among other benefits, he said. Those employees based outside of the United States will receive benefits that align with the employment laws and local practices in each country, Roslansky noted.

“For both our GBO and China employees, we have an internal mobility process for impacted team members to help find a new role if there’s a skill fit,” the CEO wrote. “In an evolving market, we must continuously have the conviction to adapt our strategy in order to make our vision a reality,” he added.

Roslansky also told employees that the company’s China-based jobs app, InCareer, will be phased out by Aug. 9. The LinkedIn platform had already been pulled in China in 2021 due to what company officials said was a “challenging operating environment.”

“Though InCareer experienced some success in the past year thanks to our strong China-based team, it also encountered fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate,” he said.

Those working in product, engineering, corporate, sales, and marketing in China will be out of a job, he added.

More Companies Slash Jobs

Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is the latest major firm to initiate layoffs after Shopify announced that it is selling its logistics business and laying off 20 percent of its staff, or about 2,700 employees.

Unity Software also unveiled plans to slash its workforce in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in May.

In April, Disney, Dropbox, Gap, Lyft, Whole Foods, and Vice were among dozens of companies to announce workforce cuts amid an increasingly volatile economy.

TechCrunch reported that nearly 18,000 employees were laid off across dozens of companies in April, slightly less than the 37,109 workers laid off in March.

Despite the layoffs, the United States added 253,000 jobs in April, up from 165,000 in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, bringing the unemployment rate down to 3.4 percent, a more than 50-year low.