SUNNYVALE, Calif. - LinkedIn announced plans Wednesday to eliminate roughly 5% of its workforce, creating an estimated 875 new highly motivated LinkedIn users in a major boost to engagement on the professional networking platform.
The Microsoft-owned company is reorganizing teams even after revenue rose 12% in the most recent quarter, demonstrating the modern technology sector's ability to treat strong growth as an excellent time to see whether strong growth can be achieved with fewer people.
Within minutes of the announcement, affected employees reportedly changed their profile photos to grayscale, added "Open to Work" banners and began publishing 1,400-word reflections on how losing access to Slack had taught them the true meaning of leadership.
"This is vertical integration," said an analyst. "LinkedIn does not merely serve the labor market anymore. It manufactures inventory for it."
The company said the cuts were not being made specifically because AI was replacing jobs, a distinction employees said was comforting because it meant they had been made redundant by ordinary corporate strategy rather than the future.
Recruiters welcomed the influx of talent, then immediately posted automated messages asking recently laid-off LinkedIn employees whether they had considered applying to LinkedIn.
The company declined to say whether laid-off staff would retain Premium accounts.
By late afternoon, one departing product manager's post titled "Some personal news" had received more engagement than the feature he spent three years building.
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