LinkedIn fires 668 employees in second round of layoffs this year

Microsoft Corp.-owned professional network LinkedIn announced a fresh round of layoffs on Monday, saying the job cuts will affect 668 employees.

"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," the social media network says in a statement.

"While we are adapting our organisational structures and streamlining our decision making, we are continuing to invest in strategic priorities for our future and to ensure we continue to deliver value for our members and customers," the statement says. "We are committed to providing our full support to all impacted employees during this transition and ensuring that they are treated with care and respect," it adds.

This comes five months after LinkedIn axed 716 jobs in order to expand the use of vendors amid fluctuating market and customer demand. "With the market and customer demand fluctuating more, and to serve emerging and growth markets more effectively, we are expanding the use of vendors," Ryan Roslansky, chief executive officer of LinkedIn, wrote in an email to employees.

"We are also removing layers, reducing management roles and broadening responsibilities to make decisions more quickly," he wrote.

The professional network also shut down InCareer, its local jobs app in China. "Though InCareer experienced some success in the past year thanks to our strong China-based team, it also encountered fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate," Roslansky said.

"While we're making meaningful progress creating economic opportunities for our members and customers and experiencing record engagement on the platform, we're also seeing shifts in customer behavior and slower revenue growth. In an evolving market, we must continuously have the conviction to adapt our strategy in order to make our vision a reality," said Roslansky.

The LinkedIn CEO said the company will be refocusing its 'Global Business Organization' for the next phase of growth which involves bringing teams together in a more integrated model to better support customers.

"To accelerate our ease of doing business work, our Product & Engineering teams will take the lead for our technology roadmap, and the Business Productivity team will be sunsetted," the LinkedIn CEO said.

LinkedIn expects the macro environment to remain challenging this year “We're adapting as we have done this year and will continue to operate with the ambition we need to deliver on our vision and the pragmatism required to run the business well. We will continue to manage our expenses as we invest in strategic growth areas, knowing that the foundations we are putting in place now - for innovation, agility and scale - are setting us up for the years ahead," said Roslansky.