LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned business- and employment-focused social network, laid off workers in its recruiting department on Monday.
The report, however, did not specify the number of employees who were affected by the layoffs..
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This comes after Microsoft reportedly announced job cuts in its hardware divisions including HoloLens, Surface and Xbox teams. The tech firm sacked 617 of its employees working in the Seattle office, according to a Bloomberg report.
The report highlighted that the job cuts across HoloLens raise questions about the future of third-gen HoloLens mixed-reality headsets.
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“While we don’t comment on specific staffing details, we can share there are no changes to HoloLens 2 and our commitment to mixed reality,” the report cited a spokesperson as saying.Meanwhile, Xbox Chief Phil Spencer, in an email to employees, said, “I encourage everyone to take the time and space necessary to process these changes and support your colleagues.”
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Last week, GitHub, a software collaboration platform owned by Microsoft, announced it is laying off up to 10% of its workforce and closing all of its offices, including its headquarters in San Francisco.
The company, which has about 3,000 employees, said it will also continue its hiring freeze and make a number of other internal changes to “protect the short-term health” of its business.
In January, Microsoft said it would lay off some 10,000 employees or about 5% of its global workforce to “align cost structure” with declining revenue.The company added that it would continue to invest in strategic areas and allocate both “capital and talent to areas of secular growth.”
CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a blog post that organisations in every industry and geography are now “exercising caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one”.
He said the decision was difficult but necessary, adding that “we are living through times of significant change.”
Nadella said while the company was eliminating roles in some areas, it will continue to hire in key strategic areas.
About a week later, the tech giant reported disappointing quarterly profits and warned that revenue deceleration was expected to continue into 2023. It is also grappling with a slump in the personal computer market after a pandemic boom fizzled out.
Microsoft said in July last year that a small number of roles had been eliminated, while news site Axios in October reported that the company had laid off under 1,000 employees across several divisions.
Several companies including Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, among others, have announced layoffs in the past few months.
So far, 344 tech companies have laid off around 103,767 employees in 2023, according to tracking site Layoffs.fyi.
