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US-China tech war
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LinkedIn shuts down last China app amid global job cuts, ending a platform that trailed far behind domestic rivals

  • InCareer is shutting down as LinkedIn cuts more than 700 jobs globally and turns its China focus to cross-border hiring
  • LinkedIn joins peers like Google, Facebook and Twitter without a platform in China, after shutting down its main social network there in 2021

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LinkedIn announced that it is cutting more than 700 jobs worldwide and shutting down its remaining app in China, InCareer. Photo: Reuters
Coco Fengin Beijing
LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned platform for jobseekers and recruiters, is shuttering the app it launched in China less than two years ago, ending its remaining social media presence in the country as it cuts hundreds of jobs worldwide.
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The company is cutting 716 jobs across its global operations amid “fierce competition” and “slower revenue growth”, CEO Ryan Roslansky wrote in a letter published on Monday. Revenue was up 8 per cent year on year in the quarter ended March, slower than the 10 per cent and 17 per cent growth in the two previous quarters, according to Microsoft financial disclosures.

In China, LinkedIn is dismissing its product and engineering teams and downsizing the corporate, sales, and marketing departments, Roslansky said in the letter. It will maintain the talent, marketing and learning businesses to focus on “assisting companies operating in China to hire, market, and train abroad”, he added. The letter did not specify the size of job cuts in China.

In a separate Chinese letter to clients published on the social media platform WeChat, LinkedIn said its China app, called InCareer, will shut down on August 9, 2023.
LinkedIn launched InCareer at the end of 2021 as a paired-back job-hunting app, without a social feed so it would be easier to comply with China’s censorship rules. The company shut down its main social network in the country earlier that year, citing “greater compliance requirements”.

LinkedIn launched in China in 2014, making it relatively long-lived in the country for a foreign platform. To operate in the country, it censored content deemed sensitive by Beijing.

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Censorship on the platform has sometimes extended beyond written posts. In 2021, LinkedIn blocked Chinese users from viewing the accounts of multiple US journalists who had written stories about sensitive topics. It also censored accounts of academics and human rights activists.
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