LinkedIn just had one of its best quarters on record. Revenue rose 12% from a year ago, faster than the year before.
Then on Wednesday, the company started laying off about 5% of its staff. That's not a contradiction anymore - it's the new normal in tech.
The Microsoft-owned network employs more than 17,500 people worldwide. A 5% cut puts the number around 875 jobs.
LinkedIn said the layoffs aren't about AI replacing workers. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters the moves are part of a reorganization, shifting staff toward parts of the business that are growing faster and trimming the rest.
LinkedIn sells recruiting software and premium subscriptions. Both lines are growing, which is why the cuts caught people off guard.
The teams getting hit have not been disclosed, and Reuters did not include any on-the-record comment from a LinkedIn spokesperson.
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LinkedIn isn't an outlier. So far in 2026, tech layoffs are running close to 103,000 jobs, according to tracker Layoffs.fyi.
That's already on track to top the 124,000 total for all of 2025. The wave has picked up speed in the second quarter.
Block said in February it was cutting nearly half its workforce. Cloudflare announced a roughly 20% cut last week, and Meta is reportedly planning a May 20 layoff round.
What's different from the 2023 round of cuts is that most of these companies are reporting growth. The cost cuts aren't being forced by bad earnings - they're being chosen.
Microsoft's broader picture matters more than LinkedIn's slice of it. The company is one of the largest cloud and AI infrastructure providers, and its capital spending on data centers is running at record levels.
The LinkedIn round fits the pattern of paying for AI investment by spending less on people. Spending less on people to spend more on chips is the new playbook.
For investors, that means the headline numbers - revenue, margins, AI capex - will keep rising even as headcount falls. Don't expect that mix to flip soon.
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