LinkedIn To Cut Over 700 Jobs, Close China App

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Facts

  • Citing slower revenue growth and changing customer behavior, LinkedIn announced Monday that it will cut 716 jobs globally, discontinue its professional networking services and product and engineering teams in China, and downsize its sales and marketing functions in the country.1
  • The networking platform, owned by Microsoft, said it will also shut down its China job posting app, InCareer, by August. That limited version of its main platform, created in 2014, allowed people to search for jobs but not post or share articles like they can on LinkedIn.2
  • Though it ended most of its Chinese services in 2021, LinkedIn was the only major Western social media site operating in the country, prompting condemnation for allegedly cooperating with Beijing in blacklisting journalists critical of the government.3
  • CEO Ryan Roslansky said the company, with a current workforce of 20K, will also create 250 new jobs for which employees affected by the cuts in its sales, operations, and support teams would be eligible to apply.4
  • The move comes as LinkedIn, which saw year-over-year 8% revenue growth in the three months through March, faced competition from domestic Chinese companies, the three largest of which — 51job.com, Zhaopin, and Liepin.com — held more than 70% of the market share as of 2021.1
  • LinkedIn's job cuts are the latest in a series of tech sector layoffs in recent months, totaling 100K between Google, Amazon, Meta, Twitter, and Microsoft.3

Sources: 1Wall Street Journal, 2New York Times, 3Al Jazeera, and 4BBC News.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by Business Insider. LinkedIn has and continues to prioritize business profitability over the values of free speech. While claiming to support "freedom of expression," it censored posts about the Tiananmen Square massacre and hid journalistic posts from its users. The company may have shut down its Chinese app, but that doesn't absolve it from appeasing the CCP for financial gain.
  • Narrative B, as provided by The Guardian. LinkedIn's decision is the result of multiple factors, including a volatile tech market and increasing regulatory oversight from Beijing. As are all major players in the industry, the company is trying to deal with domestic Chinese competition and the wider global economic downturn to retain jobs and reach users in as many areas as possible.