LinkedIn lays off 10% of staff

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 6 Nov 2008 at 12:26

LinkedIn is cutting 36 jobs, some 10% of its workforce, in the latest round of Silicon Valley lay-offs.

The site is (somewhat ironically) marketed as a professional social-networking site, designed to help job seekers find potential employees and vice versa.

It currently claims over 30 million users, and continues to see healthy numbers of new accounts, bolstered by widespread job uncertainty and growing redundancies.

The company claims the layoffs, which come despite a recent seven-figure venture capital investment, are part of a restructuring process which will focus on the revenue generating parts of the business.

Last month the company received more than $22 million in investment from Goldman Sachs and Bessemer Venture Partners, in its fifth round of funding in its five-year history.

"In today's economy we spend more time tending to our professional networks, and so it's no surprise that LinkedIn continues to grow in membership and engagement," says David Cowan, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Earlier this year the company raised another $53 million dollars, which valued the company at around $1 billion.

At the time, chief executive Dan Nye claimed to have no plans to take the company public, preferring to build the site and roll out new features. The site uses premium subscription accounts to generate revenue.