Microsoft Corp's professional networking site LinkedIn said on Tuesday it would cut about 960 jobs, or 6% of its global workforce, as the coronavirus pandemic is having a sustained impact on demand for its recruitment products.
California-based LinkedIn helps employers assess a candidate's suitability for a role and employees use the platform to find new job.
Jobs will be cut across sales and hiring divisions of the group globally. Announcing the plan in a message posted on LinkedIn's website, Chief Executive Ryan Roslansky said the company would provide at least 10 weeks of severance pay as well as health insurance for a year for U.S. employees, and will hire for newly-created roles from laid-off staff.
"I want you to know these are the only layoffs we are planning," Roslansky said in his message. Affected staff, who have not yet been told, would be able to keep company-issued cell phones, laptops, and recently purchased equipment to help them work from home while making career transitions, he said.
As lockdowns to contain the coronavirus have hit businesses around the world, LinkedIn's business has been hit as companies lay off staff or sharply curtail hiring.
LinkedIn said employees affected by its job cuts will be informed this week and they will start receiving invitations in the next few hours to meetings to learn more about next steps.
"If you don't receive a meeting invite, you are not directly impacted by this change," Roslansky said.
"This is white supremacy. This is institutionalized racism," Aaisha Joseph, an executive assistant in New York City, posted on Microsoft Corp's LinkedIn in early June, calling out the Black leadership vacuum at tech giants.
In another post on LinkedIn, Ian Davis, a Black creative consultancy executive who founded Age of the Creative, called out his former bosses at a global advertising agency, for telling him he had an "attitude problem" after speaking out.
Uncomfortable remarks like these, which have generated thousands of responses and millions of views, were once shunned at the office and confined to no-holds-barred forums like Twitter Inc. But they are now increasingly common on LinkedIn, known more for its polite discourse where users networked their way to their next job.
As U.S. companies grapple with addressing racism and inequality stoked by nationwide protests, workers sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic have staked out LinkedIn as the next battleground for unvarnished discussion in the virtual office.