LinkedIn axes hundreds of jobs in its second round of layoffs in 2023

LinkedIn has announced that it would lay off 668 employees amid dwindling revenue growth, making it the second time this year that the professional networking platform is trimming its workforce.

In May, the company slashed 716 positions from its sales, operations, and support teams, all in an effort to streamline its operations and expedite decision-making processes, bringing its total reported layoffs to 1,384 in 2023 alone.

This time, the layoff is set to affect the engineering, talent, and finance departments, and comes at a time when LinkedIn is navigating through a broader hiring slowdown in the tech industry and a reduction in advertising spending, according to the latest company results released by its parent company, Microsoft.

It's worth noting that this restructuring move is unfolding despite LinkedIn reporting a 5% YoY increase in revenues in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2023 year. Revenue topped $15 billion for the first time this fiscal year and LinkedIn has continued to add new members to its community base of 950 million for eight consecutive quarters.

The cuts, which affected over 3% of its 19,500-strong staff, add to the over 240,000 job losses this year in the technology sector, according to the tech layoffs tracking website, Layoffs.fyi.

In related news, American chipmaker Qualcomm last week revealed plans to cut 2.5% of its workforce (1,258 employees), online lending platform, LendingClub also reduced its workforce by 14% (172 employees), and supply chain software startup Flexport let go of approximately 20% (700 employees) of its staff.