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LinkedIn to cut 960 jobs worldwide
- vandleyindust 6y agoLooks like all cuts are across HR/Sales.
- pixelbreaker 6y agoI'm sure they can find a job on LinkedIn.
- LaundroMat 6y ago960 is 6% of the global LinkedIn workforce. I am baffled by how many people work for LinkedIn.
- actuator 6y agoThat seems like a lot but a lot of interesting stuff in engineering has come out of LinkedIn, I think a lot of other roles like sales might be there.
- ponker 6y agoAlmost all enterprise software companies have more people in sales than engineering. Microsoft is one big exception but LinkedIn must have more sales than eng.
- wastedhours 6y agoAnd they prefer you to be managed by a salesperson over letting you be self-serve as they tie you into a guaranteed spend with them. I spent years trying to untangle us from their managed services, but couldn't as they batched all discounts company wide. I've never worked anywhere where departments shared budgets (even in a 3 person startup, my marketing "budget" was kept separate to other elements, alas the CEO had other issues...), but they basically enforced us to. That meant I had to pay for pretty much all the LinkedIn usage company wide out of my budget (to receive the discounts on different products as they only applied to one invoice - huge savings on purchasing separately from different budget lines, but still large sums of cash), but internal systems meant other departments couldn't contribute their share back to us. And once you're in the door, you're then given about 3 different contacts (your sales contact, a follow up sales contact, and then some kind of "content success" person whose only job I could tell was sharing the occasional case study). God I hate LinkedIn sales.
- saas_sam 6y agoLiterally everything your company pays for is out of individual departmental budgets? You can't do internal chargebacks, shared services, or move budget around if needed? I've never worked anywhere w/ the kinda crystal ball required to make rigid dept budgets work year-round, personally.
- wastedhours 6y ago
- ponker 6y agoMost of it is sales.
- durnygbur 6y agoselling... what? or LinkedIn has become corporate IG and people receive money for all this "this is how I succeeded" and "I overcame my weaknesses" unsolicited content.
- mytailorisrich 6y agoSpam tool for low quality "recruiters" is my experience.
- Nextgrid 6y agoSelling the premium subscriptions for recruiters I assume. But I agree that the platform is becoming a typical social-media cesspool which is a shame because it could be really great if they toned down the "social media" aspect of it and focused more on recruitment, better job ads (most of it is garbage) and essentially be a corporate rolodex (right now it's a pain to use because all of the noise, and the UI is terrible and slow).
- rococode 6y agoTheir enterprise recruiting tool costs $9000/year.
- durnygbur 6y agoSuch a poor outcome for this price. Once was involved in recruiting and the recruitment platform had some integration and subscribtion with LI. So many hopeless zero-effort applications from India... and some weird from China (or at least from profiles claiming to be from there).
- Nextgrid 6y agoI'm baffled by that number given how bad the product is. It has a lot of potential, but is completely ruined by the social media aspect and their attempt at making it yet another cesspool like Twitter or Instagram, all the way down to the algorithmic feed, likes and reactions. They should step away from the nonsense and make the tool (because yes it should be seen as a tool and not a lifestyle) easier to use, not harder. Stop getting in my way trying to make me use the algorithmic feed (it forgets your choice after a few hours) or nagging me to add a profile picture (I've said no for 2 years, why are you still trying?) or certain profile details I might not want to share, or "following sources" (whatever that means, I guess it's about following bullshit hashtags so you can have even more crap in your feed). The UI is absolutely terrible and slow for no good reason and makes it painful to use. The worst is that you might think "okay well the free version for the plebs is nasty because it tries to drum up engagement, but the premium version should be better, right?" WRONG! The premium version is just as bad but instead of wasting just your time it wastes your time and your money.
- MattGaiser 6y agoI can see that being the cause.
- godzillabrennus 6y agoWhich product? LinkedIn has managed to release a new app for basically every function while also bundling all that functionality into their primary app... It’s truly a disaster over there...
- Nextgrid 6y agoLinkedIn itself. I have not used any of their other products so can't comment on them, though I wouldn't be surprised if they are just as terrible.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoThe feed is really quite awful. All social media is somewhat performative by nature, but LinkedIn's feed takes it to another level. It's not just performing for peers, but also performing for current and potential future employers. Never have so many words been written that mean so little.
- sshagent 6y agoThey need that many to keep up with the sheer volume of emails they are sending out each day /s
- justsid 6y agoLinkedIn keeps suggesting me my mother who passed away 4 years ago. Every week, without fail, I get an email telling me that I should totally connect with her. It’s highly annoying and no matter what I do to my email preferences, I keep getting the same damn email.
- sshagent 6y agoAgreed. A couple of times a year i go try and purge the stuff they send. I do want to see the job searches that I've asked for, i don't expect to see any job posting I've even glimpse at, or anything vaguely associated with it. In all seriousness someone at Linkedin is getting paid per email sent.
- downvoteme1 6y agoA lot of them are sales people. LinkedIn as a people business needs a lot of sales reps and account managers to be in contact with Recruiters and other people involved with selling . 16K people spanning the whole globe is not bad .
- dustinmoris 6y agoIt is not just big, it is mega big. WhatsApp had world dominance and their product had to deliver instant messages, including photos, videos and other features over crappy internet connections and they managed to build, manage and sustain an amazing consumer product with a handful of people, so 16k for an online job board is laughable and embarrassing. It's just a website after all.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoYou can't really automate enterprise sales. Whatsapp would have needed at least 200 salespeople uf they hadn't been bought by FB.
- rainyMammoth 6y agoI'm baffled as well, especially given how mediocre their website is (and yes I know they have more than just their website). Usually with those type of comments someone replies explaining that we don't get it and that you MUST have 20000 people to support a website like LinkedIn
- blocked_again 6y agoDoesn't LinkedIn(Microsoft) has a shit ton of money in reserves? Is cutting down these jobs in the midst of a pandemic really essential for the company's survival? Especially when the economies has started recovering in many parts of the world.
- duxup 6y agoI don't think you stay in business long paying folks that ... you don't want / need working for you anymore.
- blocked_again 6y agoYeah. But the economies are going to recover right? I don't think a few more months of pay slips for 1000 people is going to make any dent in MS bank account. But it sure makes a dent in the life of people who were let go in the middle of a pandemic. If they were not needed in the first place, then the management who hired them in the first place should be also fired for incompetence and letting them all go in middle of a pandemic.
- duxup 6y ago>I don't think a few more months of pay slips I suspect they think it is more than that. Also depending on their situation, they might already be getting a few months of pay anyhow.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago> If they were not needed in the first place, then the management who hired them in the first place should be also fired for incompetence and letting them all go in middle of a pandemic. It is unreasonable to expect management to have a crystal ball into the future. The role of serving as a safety net can only be accomplished by society as a whole, not individual business. Businesses should be able to purchase labor and not purchase labor as they see fit, just like they purchase other supplies for the operation of the business. The role of providing basic income should fall to the government.
- 6y ago
- curiousllama 6y agoCompanies commonly use layoffs as an easy way to get rid of under-performing staff, realize cost savings from previous investments (e.g., automation) ahead of schedule, or efficiently reorganize divisions whose execs fall out of favor. Not going to say this is good, but a <10% layoff is not unreasonable for a healthy company, especially when some business units may be stagnating. However callous it is, roles on the margin get cut when prospects for growth dim.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wolco 6y agoThe issue not being talked about is the removal of the recruiter from remote roles. Those recruiters paid linkedin thousands a year for premium access. Plus the lower jobs posting overall.
- kevstev 6y agoWhat do you mean? The only remote job I have had used a typical recruiter from the company side. I am sure he had a premium subscription. I didn't use a recruiter from my side as I knew someone that worked there.
- wolco 6y agoThird party recruiters specifically. I've seen so many jobs that send leetcode tests instead as the initial filter and use job boards to find candidates.
- vcanales 6y ago> removal of the recruiter from remote roles What does this mean? What issue is this?
- wolco 6y agoMany remote roles are direct apply/hire from job boards with leetcode tests that act as a filter. Recruiters are being used less.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mark-r 6y agoSo maybe this means I'll be getting less spam from LinkedIn? Unfortunately it will probably mean the opposite.
- harshulpandav 6y agoLinkedIn would be investing in other parts of the business which would result in some job creation and the firm would "work with employees impacted by today's announcement to explore these opportunities" Good to know that they will first consider rehiring/interviewing the laid off employees and they are public about it. Curious question: does the employee get to keep the severance package if rehired after being laid off?
- compiler-guy 6y agoI don't know how linked in is handling it, but in a typical layoff situation (I'm unfortunately familiar with several personally, and many more corporately) if you are rehired after your official termination date, you get to keep whatever the termination package was. The company considers you a new employee. It needs to be this way for certain legal reasons.
- AlphaSite 6y agoUsually the way it works for our company, they give you a 2/3 month grace period where you stay on the books and get a chance to interview externally or internally and you only get the severance (in addition to the 2/3 months no work period) if you move out of the company.
- vvladymyrov 6y agoUsually there is a wording in a papers that need to be signed in order to get severance - if rehired, severance won't be paid (plus reject the right to litigate). This is easy to implement as severance might be paid in be-weekly cadence (like salary).
- 6c696e7578 6y agoOn top of everything else, I think this goes to show how expensive Azure infrastructure really is.
- dyingkneepad 6y agoHow is this related to this news? Yes, I know both are owned by MSFT, but I'll need more info.
- 6c696e7578 6y agoLinkedin wasn't on Azure until MS bought them. Now the TCO has gone up. GitHub has also shown signs of the Azure infrastructure.
- GaryNumanVevo 6y agoConsidering they last posted about moving to Azure in 2019, I doubt they've moved everything to azure in <12 months.
- 6c696e7578 6y agoYou're right. I think downtime is holding them back.
- ceo_tim_crook 6y agoYes, that must be it
- 12xo 6y agoWhat the heck do close to 10k people do at LinkedIn? Serious question. Why does this site/company require 10k people?
- CrackpotGonzo 6y agoSales.
- 12xo 6y agoIts mostly self-service and partner driven (programmatic). As an ex VP of Ad Sales, I just dont see the need... My guess is that they have several thousand offshore devs and a lot of fat from acquisitions.
- blizkreeg 6y agoyou don't think $7B of revenue in 2019 merits 10k people? Do you think you can run that size of a business with 500?
- 12xo 6y agoYes you can. Look at Craigslist or POF.com for examples. But I also forgot that LI owns Lynda.com, so there are a lot of redundancies over there.
- yibg 6y agoNeither craigslist nor POF generates 7 billion in revenue. Latest number I can find for craigslist is around 700m in 2016, let’s assume it’s 1b now. And let’s assume they have 1 employee. You don’t think hiring an additional 10k employees to get an extra 6b in revenue is worth it?
- 12xo 6y agoCL has approx 50 employees, operate around the globe and are on track to do in excess of 1b in revenue this year... So I disagree with your assessment. There are many businesses that operate in the 10figure range that dont require 10's of thousands of employees. To me LI is more indicative of bloat. Especially since they are owned by MSFT.
- kgraves 6y agoHmm, title looks wrong lets fix it: 'Microsoft to extinguish 960 jobs worldwide'. There, fixed it for you.
- jlokier 6y agoI'm surprised. LinkedIn has to be one of the major sites whose traffic has gone up in recent months, with so many people looking for work and stuck in front of a computer.
- patrickaljord 6y agoLinkedIn makes most of its money out of companies posting job ads, not on people applying for them. And companies paying for ads are going down.
- postalrat 6y agoI always figured LinkedIn makes their money selling candidate data to recruiters.
- ilamont 6y agoI'm sorry to hear about people losing their jobs. It sucks, especially now when there is so much uncertainty. LinkedIn makes a lot of money through recruitment ads - five years ago it was at least $300/month for professional positions in hot markets. If companies stop posting ads or switch to cheaper alternatives (some companies still use Craigslist) the impact will be significant for LinkedIn and its employees.
- jiofih 6y agoWow, this means linkedIn has ~16k employees? What on earth are all those people working on?
- MagnumPIG 6y agoAds.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoMicrosoft is doing its usual fiscal year-end layoffs, but fewer than usual - https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-doing-its-usual-fiscal-year-end-layoffs-but-fewer-than-usual/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-is-doing-its-usual-f...
- supernova87a 6y agoA lot of the very big companies are quite reluctant to start layoffs if they think the situation can be survived for a few months. They don't want to be seen as evil firing-their-contractors, people-as-expendable, etc. They are an easy target as "big corp". But if they can see this is going to go on more than the end of 2020, they will start having to confront the need to layoff people seriously. Interestingly, the more certainty they have about how bad it is, the sooner the layoffs.
- thebean11 6y agoOr, they've really been wanting to do this for a while, and the economic situation provides political cover.
- bbarn 6y agoThe downward spiral for all industries that are primarily US based because of the overreaction to COVID has not even begun to be felt. But you know, keep posting about how this side won't wear masks and people are jerks all day instead of facing the fact that haircuts aren't the goal - a stable economy is essential, not secondary, to a country's survival.
- pm90 6y agoA stable economy requires its healthcare systems to not overflow. It needs to be able to provide its citizens with healthcare. The US response has been the opposite of overreaction and the economy will pay the price.
- briansteffens 6y agoAs is tradition, we managed to get all the downsides of both shutting down and not shutting down, with none of the benefits of either.
- habosa 6y agoI find it a little disappointing how when any large company reduces staffing it always makes the news. I'm not at all saying these people at LinkedIn deserve this, I bet they're smart people and I hope they find new employment very soon. But speaking generally ... many of us have worked at or worked with big bloated companies. We all know that many of them could be improved by slimming down. But we report on it like its a sign of the downfall.
- prawn 6y agoI always think "Those 960 people had jobs there for a while - that's a positive". I've worked for myself the last 20 years so I'm occasionally jealous of anyone who's had even a year of stable, predictable income.
- quacked 6y agoHow does your self-employed career compare to a parallel salaried career in your industry across 20 years? (In terms of year-averaged income, hours worked, etc.)
- sillysaurusx 6y agoSeconding this question. It'd be fascinating to hear a detailed perspective from someone who has spent 20 years working for themselves, without also reaching traditional "success" (i.e. getting rich). It's starting to feel like getting rich is overrated when it requires so much of your life to make it happen. Hearing from someone who ended up with similar freedoms (working for yourself is no small one!) would be cool.
- oneoff1777711 6y ago5 years experience web development/full stack/mobile here. 29 years old. I’ve never had a salaried job in my life. I’m able to pull down $150/hr for a couple months a year (8 hour days), $125/hr for another 6 months full time, then take a couple months off and I’m making a decent salary when it all shakes out. That’s fully remote and working for friends or friends of friends, occasionally taking a contract with a mega FAANG corp for a while, but usually working the contract with a buddy. If you’re savvy, good at networking and self motivated, you can make money which is comparable to most full time jobs. Just gotta be careful about the taxes and make sure you save for the lean times.
- abraae 6y ago> "Our Talent Solutions business continues to be impacted as fewer companies, including ours, need to hire at the same volume they did previously." We're in a recruitment-related field (online background checking) and we can clearly see that recruitment activity has dropped way off, even in sectors that are largely unaffected by the pandemic. My theory is that people are clinging on to their jobs tightly as unemployment rises, so discretionary turnover is way down.
- octygen 6y agoI'd err towards this direction too based on the megacorp I work at. Curious if you have ballpark #s to how much less companies are hiring.
- abraae 6y agoMy guess would be about 50% for retail. We are in NZ, so unique circumstances apply - there is no Covid on the loose, so things are all normal as far as retail goes, but entire industries such as overseas tourism have vanished for now, so there are many candidates for every job.
- gundmc 6y agoIt's awful to see such a large reduction in force when MSFT overall is up 30% year to date. I haven't heard of other FAAMG companies making similar moves.
- aahhahahaaa 6y agoIt's got to sting a little to use the platform you were laid off from to look for a new job. I wish everyone the best.
- mattoxic 6y agoDoes that mean i don't get 960 emails a week now?