Microsoft Unveils New Round of Layoffs on LinkedIn, Affecting Approximately 3%, or 668 Employees
LinkedIn revealed another round of job cuts on Monday, impacting approximately 668 positions across its engineering, product, talent, and finance teams. These layoffs come in response to the company’s sustained year-over-year revenue growth slowdown, spanning eight consecutive quarters.
In its quarterly revenue report for July, Microsoft, LinkedIn’s parent company, noted a sluggish revenue growth rate, with only a 5 percent increase in the second quarter. This trend persists despite continuous growth in LinkedIn’s membership throughout the past two years. To bolster revenue, Microsoft has outlined its strategy to enhance operations and prioritize core initiatives. These recent LinkedIn layoffs align with the company’s fiscal year 2024 plan.
In an official blog post, LinkedIn stated, ‘Talent changes are a difficult, but necessary and regular part of managing our business. The changes we shared with our team today will result in a reduction of approximately 668 roles across our engineering, product, talent, and finance teams.’
Microsoft’s recent layoffs at LinkedIn contribute to a broader industry trend of job reductions within the technology sector. Tech companies are grappling with sluggish revenue growth and economic uncertainties. LinkedIn’s layoffs, which account for 3 percent of the workforce, supplement the 10,000 job cuts announced by Microsoft in both January and July. The overarching revenue growth decline has led CEO Satya Nadella to instigate cost-saving measures and prioritize revenue generation.
LinkedIn’s executives, Mohak Shroff and Tomer Cohen, emphasized the need for organizational evolution in an official memo viewed by CNBC. They stated, ‘As we continue to execute on our FY24 plan, we need to also evolve how we work and what we prioritize so we can deliver on the key initiatives we’ve identified that will have an outsized impact in achieving our business goals. This means adapting our organizational structures to improve agility and accountability, establishing unambiguous ownership and driving improved efficiency and transparency through reduced layering.’
Interestingly, even as layoffs occur, LinkedIn is reportedly ramping up its hiring efforts in India, according to an informed source. LinkedIn affirmed its commitment to investing in strategic priorities for its future and ensuring continued value delivery to its members and customers in its blog post.
The technology sector has witnessed a wave of layoffs in recent months, with tens of thousands of employees losing their jobs. Companies such as Amazon, Meta, and Google have all announced job reductions in preparation for a potential economic downturn. According to a report by employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the tech sector laid off 141,516 employees in the first half of 2023, compared to approximately 6,000 job cuts a year ago
