Microsoft LinkedIn Announces Second Wave of Layoffs as Tech Sector Struggles Persist

Microsoft Corp's MSFT LinkedIn shared plans to lay off 668 employees across its engineering, talent, and finance teams in the second round of job cuts for the social media network for professionals amid slowing revenue growth and uncertain economic outlook this year.

The cuts, which affect over 3% of the 20,000-strong staff, add to the tens of thousands of job losses this year in the technology sector, Reuters reports.

Most downsizing came from the engineering organization, CNBC cites from an internal memo. Cuts also came in the company's finance and human resources groups.

These new layoffs are in addition to the 10,000 from January. The sector has laid off 141,516 employees in the first half of the year compared with about 6,000 a year ago, according to employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

In Q4, LinkedIn's revenue increased 5% year-on-year, vs. 10% in the previous quarter.

Microsoft has cited a slowdown in hiring and a decline in advertising spending as headwinds for LinkedIn, although it continues adding new members to its community of 950 million.

LinkedIn in May cut 716 jobs across sales, operations, and support teams to streamline its processes and remove layers to help make quicker decisions.

LinkedIn is now ramping up hiring in India.

Price Action: MSFT shares traded higher by 2.06% at $334.48 on the last check Monday.