LinkedIn Is Closing Its China App & Sacking 716 Staff

In the most recent round of tech industry cutbacks, professional networking platform LinkedIn has announced it is firing more than 700 staff members and shutting down its China jobs app.

The changes, which LinkedIn announced in a blog post late on Monday, were due to “shifts in customer behavior and slower revenue growth,” according to LinkedIn.

In a letter to employees on Monday, LinkedIn Chief Executive Ryan Roslansky said the company would shed 716 jobs and scrap its job-hunting app in China in response to slowing revenue growth and changing customer behaviour.

“In an evolving market, we must continuously have the conviction to adapt our strategy to make our vision a reality,” Roslansky said.

Over the past year, technology businesses have resorted to periodic rounds of layoffs, reversing more than a decade of growth that was largely unchecked.

Microsoft-owned LinkedIn suggested that there might not be more than 500 net job losses.

LinkedIn announced that as part of its strategic reorganization, it will begin “opening up more than 250 new roles” on May 15 in various teams across its operations division, new business division, and account management division.

InCareer, a local jobs app for China, would also be shut down by August, the company announced, citing “ferocious competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate.”

When InCareer was first introduced in 2021, it was a jobs board without a social feed or the option to publish posts or articles.

It took the place of LinkedIn’s Chinese website, which was shut down by the firm as Beijing tightened regulations on the internet industry.

The job losses follow the layoffs of more than 100,000 workers at Google, Amazon, Meta, Twitter, and Microsoft as the most significant layoffs to affect the tech industry in recent months.

According to a corporate spokesperson quoted by Reuters, LinkedIn, which has its main office in Sunnyvale, California, would continue to have a presence in China to assist businesses with hiring and employee training.

Due to its involvement in Chinese censorship, notably the blacklisting of journalists who were critical of Beijing, LinkedIn, the only significant Western social media platform present in China, came under fire.