When a tech giant like Microsoft begins exploring job cuts, multiple business wings are affected as a result of the central decision. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is exploring layoffs in the US, bringing the company headcount down to better meet business goals. Despite its central role in helping workers find jobs, LinkedIn is not immune to the business pressures that come with running an organization, and it is now sending its own employees into the job market to find work once more.
The LinkedIn worker cuts are being conducted around its operations, affecting 281 workers overall, according to its Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) document filings. The employee purge at Microsoft has already had an impact on the central businesses, but employees at different subdivisions, such as Xbox and LinkedIn, are also bearing the brunt of the changes being made at the top, aimed at cutting costs and making the companies leaner.
The LinkedIn layoffs have already gone into effect and workers remain hopeful that this is the last round of cuts for the year. (Image: Pexels)
LinkedIn Layoffs in 2025 Come for Engineers at Various Levels of the Organization
Earlier in May, Microsoft announced the termination of 3% of its staff which adds up to 6,000 workers across its business. This number included workers in its LinkedIn business wing. The goal of the cuts was to streamline business operations and make it a more productive space while realigning the workforce to meet the company’s shifting strategy. Of course, the company is pursuing all of this to ensure it doesn’t lose any market positions to competitors.
The LinkedIn job losses in 2025 are spread out across a few different locations, totaling up to 281 employees. The WARN filing mentions 159 workers in Mountain View, 60 in San Francisco, 23 in Sunnyvale, and 11 in Carpinteria. An additional 28 remote workers in California are also affected by the cuts. These employees were notified of the cuts back on May 13, so it is evident that change is already underway.
The LinkedIn layoffs appear to be focused on engineers and managers this time around, with a few additional cuts among strategists as well. From what we know, at least 71 software engineers have been cut at Mountain View, both from staff and senior positions, leaving no exceptions for seniority in the cuts.
LinkedIn’s Engineer Cuts Show That No Positions Are Immune to Change
The LinkedIn layoffs make it clear that there are no “safe” roles in 2025—all positions and role types in an organization can be subject to job cuts. While there has been a general trend of perceiving management, marketing, and other support roles to be more vulnerable to cuts, the workplace is evolving in unexpected ways.
Job cuts occurring due to the need to cut costs equally affect all roles when a company finds itself inflated with more workers than it has a need for. Similarly, with AI tools expanding in capabilities, it isn’t just the HR and writing roles that are being displaced. Earlier this year, Microsoft stated that up to 30% of its code was being written by artificial intelligence rather than its human employees. While Microsoft still needs workers to check the code and handle the rest of the 70% of work, there is a gradual trend towards AI where possible.
Language-learning company Duolingo recently revealed how it created 148 courses using AI in less than a year, showing off the benefits of its AI-first approach. The company later apologized for its statement after public backlash against this strategy showed just how little employees and customers cared for this strategy. Still, AI remains front and center as the future leader of the workplace.
Tech Sector Layoffs Spark Concern Among Employees
In 2025, it’s more important than ever for employees to look into upskilling and reskilling in order to stay up-to-date with the needs of the organization. Only employees can continue to remind employers of their relevance to the business as leaders who regret AI-centered cuts do so after the workers have already been displaced.
Most tech giants are prioritizing AI over employee retention, and this is one of the biggest reasons for the significant number of layoffs occurring this year. LinkedIn has also made significant investments in AI, promoting its AI-supported tools as the best pathway to finding a job. As businesses continue to stack all their investments into AI tools, employees will have to work harder to make their presence felt at the organization.
These tools have not evolved to the point where they can work independently of any human intervention and supervision. As a result, employees who know how to operate these tools and put the data gleaned from them into good use will be the most secure in their jobs in the coming years.
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