Microsoft-Owned LinkedIn Discloses 960 Layoffs
The job cuts come as demand for hiring drops amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Professional networking site LinkedIn is disclosing plans to cut 960 jobs as the COVID-19 pandemic takes a toll on hiring, reducing demand for its offerings.
The layoffs will represent about 6 percent of employees at LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft.
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The disclosure came in a LinkedIn post by CEO Ryan Roslansky, and follows reports last week that Microsoft has made job cuts across its teams and geographies.
Advertising on LinkedIn was already one of the areas of Microsoft‘s business hit hardest during the company’s earnings report for the first three months of the year. Microsoft reports its earnings for the quarter ended in June on Wednesday.
LinkedIn “is not immune to the effects of the global pandemic,” Roslansky said in the post disclosing the layoffs. “Our Talent Solutions business continues to be impacted as fewer companies, including ours, need to hire at the same volume they did previously.”
Ultimately, the health and economic crisis stemming from COVID-19 is “having a sustained impact on the demand for hiring,” Roslansky said.
However, he noted that “these are the only layoffs we are planning” at LinkedIn.
For the Microsoft layoffs overall, the company would not disclose the number of its job cuts or what kinds of positions were eliminated, or where the affected employees had been located, Reuters reported. A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters that it’s common for the company to re-evaluate its business as it begins a new fiscal year. Microsoft‘s fiscal year 2021 began on July 1.
Business Insider had earlier reported that the Microsoft layoffs affected less than 1,000 jobs, including some at its MSN.com online news site and its Microsoft Azure cloud division.
Microsoft had 156,439 employees—including 92,335 in the U.S., of which 55,513 were in the Puget Sound area of its home state—as of March 31, according to its website.