LinkedIn laid off 960 employees in July 2020. The cuts affected its talent-acquisition and global-sales teams and represented about 6 percent of the company’s workforce.
LinkedIn announced the layoffs during the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s business depended partly on recruiting and hiring activity, both of which were disrupted as organizations paused expansion plans and reassessed staffing needs.
The figure is sometimes confused with round numbers such as 1,000 or 1,200, but 960 is the reported total in LinkedIn’s announcement. The layoffs were not a general reduction spread evenly across every department; they were concentrated in teams most directly affected by the slowdown in recruiting and sales.
The announcement came after Ryan Roslansky became LinkedIn’s chief executive in June 2020, succeeding Jeff Weiner, who moved into the role of executive chairman. LinkedIn later remained part of Microsoft, which had acquired the company in 2016 for $26.2 billion.