In the second wave of job cutbacks this year for the professional social media network, Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) LinkedIn announced on Monday that it will let go of 668 people from its engineering, talent, and finance departments. This decision was made in response to sluggish revenue growth.
The job losses, which affect more than 3% of the 20,000-person workforce, are in addition to the tens of thousands of jobs lost in the IT industry this year due to an unreliable economic forecast.
“While we are adapting our organizational 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,” LinkedIn stated in a blog post on Monday.
According to recruitment company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the tech sector has let go 141,516 workers in the first half of the year compared to approximately 6,000 a year earlier.
LinkedIn generates revenue by selling ads and charging sales and recruitment professionals who use the network to discover qualified job applicants a membership fee.
LinkedIn’s revenue climbed 5% year over year in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2023 year as opposed to 10% in the third.
Despite continuing to recruit new members to its 950 million-strong group, LinkedIn has been facing headwinds from Microsoft, including a halt in hiring and a decrease in advertising expenditure.
To simplify its processes and remove layers to facilitate speedier decision-making, LinkedIn decided in May to eliminate 716 employees across its sales, operations, and support departments.