LinkedIn culls 6% of global jobs as Covid-19 changes business strategy

Microsoft-owned professional networking company LinkedIn on Tuesday said it will lay off about 960 employees, or 6% of its global workforce, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic’s effect on its talent solutions.

“…LinkedIn is not immune to the effects of the global pandemic. Our talent solutions business continues to be impacted as fewer companies, including ours, need to hire at the same volume they did previously,” CEO Ryan Roslansky said in a blog post.

The layoffs are across functions of its global sales and talent acquisition teams, Roslansky said, naming impacted geographies of North America, Brazil, parts of APAC, Dubai, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Sweden, Spain and Italy.

The Sunnyvale, California headquartered company declined to provide details on the layoff exercise’s impact on India-based roles.

Roslansky said that there are a set of roles in its global sales team that are no longer needed as LinkedIn evolves the way it works with talent media customers and small businesses. 

The company’s marketing and talent solutions will better benefit from a unified approach across its LMS (LinkedIn Marketing Solutions) and LTS (LinkedIn Talent Solutions) functions, he added.

The affected employees will be provided with parting benefits of severance pay and healthcare for different sets for tenures across geographies, career transition assistance, outplacement services, permission to retain LinkedIn-provided technology equipment and immigration support.

“In some countries, decisions about individual impact will be made and communicated this week, and in other countries, we will be starting the employment consultation process to talk through proposed changes before making and communicating decisions,” Roslansky added.

LinkedIn, in 2019, launched its ‘Open for Business,’ feature in India, which allowed freelancers and small business owners to showcase their services on Linkedin profiles.