LinkedIn to cut 700 further jobs as company confirms second round ...
Professional networking site, LinkedIn has announced that it will cut 716 jobs from its global workforce as the company plans to shut down its China-focused app, InCareers.
The layoffs are in addition to cuts announced by the company in February targeting global recruitment and talent acquisition following a downfall in its hiring needs.
LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, employs more than 19,000 people worldwide, with its European and Latin American headquarters based in Wilton Park, Dublin.
Employing more than 2,000 people in Ireland, its staff numbers have so far remained largely unchanged following the company's two layoff announcements, with further impacts on Irish staff unknown.
The company has grown revenue each quarter during the last year, but it joins other major technology companies, including its parent company, in laying off workers amid a weakening global economic outlook. Last year, pre-tax profits at the main Irish arm of the social media platform increased by 42% to $176.35m (€176.55m).
Citing a "challenging environment," the China app, InCareers will be phased out by the 9th of August following a decision made in 2021 to mostly withdraw from the country.
In a letter to employees, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said the move to cut roles in its sales, operations and support teams was aimed at streamlining the company's operations and would remove layers to help 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," Roslansky wrote. Roslansky also said in the letter that the changes would result in creating 250 new jobs which the people affected by the cuts will be able to apply for.
In relation to the shutdown of InCareer, the company said it faced “fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate”, which ultimately led to the decision to discontinue the service. LinkedIn will retain a presence in China to help companies operating there to hire and train employees outside the country, the company said.
Microsoft, which bought LinkedIn for around $26bn (€23.68bn) in 2016, has announced some 10,000 job cuts in recent months. Of this, 120 Irish jobs were lost, with the company adding to the running list of tech firms that have reduced their workforce in response to falling demand.
So far, more than 2,300 Irish tech jobs have been cut across Meta, Twitter, Salesforce, Indeed, and others, with more projected to come throughout 2023.
According to Central Bank of Ireland research, the scale of the downturn has affected just a small proportion of overall ICT employment in Ireland, however, the bank noted that Ireland's dependency on a small number of large firms illustrates a wider structural vulnerability of the economy to firm or sector-specific downturns.
"Nevertheless, there is uncertainty over the future growth prospects for the sector and there remains a risk that the downturn that emerged in 2022 could become more severe," the Central Bank warned.
Additional reporting from Reuters.
