Layoffs!, Official announcement: "LinkedIn Workplace" officially closed platform | LinkedIn | Official announcement

On August 9th, the globally renowned social recruitment platform LinkedIn announced that its localized job search platform "LinkedIn Workplace" in China has officially ceased its services.

In the 9 years since entering China, many localization attempts by LinkedIn have ended with regret. However, despite shutting down the "LinkedIn workplace", LinkedIn still stated that it will not give up on the Chinese market.

From its latest transformation strategy, LinkedIn will focus its strategy in the Chinese market on assisting Chinese companies in talent recruitment, brand marketing, and skill training overseas. LinkedIn China's WeChat official account also resumed updating in late July, and said that "we will continue to write the story of LinkedIn China here".

Official shutdown, layoffs!

On August 9th, LinkedIn announced that its localized job search platform "LinkedIn Workplace" in China has officially ceased its services.

It is understood that after August 9th, LinkedIn Talent Solutions will no longer support recruitment services or access to talent data insights in mainland China, including the "personal job posting" function and the local "LinkedIn Recruitment Edition" in China. All products and services of LinkedIn Workplace will be discontinued, including mobile apps, websites, and WeChat mini programs, and all personal account data of LinkedIn Workplace will be deleted. However, the changes in the LinkedIn workplace will not affect other LinkedIn accounts and services.

On May 9, LinkedIn's official WeChat official account and Weibo platform released a letter to LinkedIn's members and a related service adjustment and strategy update in China, announcing that the "LinkedIn's workplace" will officially stop service from August 9, 2023, and the size of the Chinese team will also be reduced.

According to previous reports from Reuters, LinkedIn is gradually phasing out its job applications in China and plans to lay off 716 employees in its sales, operations, and support teams.

Localization Attempt Fails Again

In the 9 years since entering China, LinkedIn has also made many localization attempts, but all ended with regret.

As a globally renowned professional social platform, LinkedIn was founded in December 2002, officially launched the following year, and successfully went public in the United States in May 2011. In 2014, LinkedIn announced its entry into the Chinese market, launching a Simplified Chinese beta version, and appointed former founder of Nuomi.com, Shen Boyang, as the Global Vice President and China Regional President of LinkedIn. With labels such as "elitism" and "internationalization", the membership of LinkedIn China initially grew rapidly. During Shen Boyang's more than two years in office, the membership of LinkedIn China skyrocketed from 4 million to over 10 million.

In 2015, under the leadership of Shen Boyang, LinkedIn China launched the localized workplace social app Red Rabbit, positioning it as the "most knowledgeable social app in the Chinese workplace.". But this localized innovation ultimately ended in failure. In July 2019, 1438 days after its launch, Red Rabbit officially went offline.

Red rabbits going offline may be related to changes in leadership strategies. According to public reports, after Shen Boyang resigned in July 2017, Lu Jian began serving as the President of LinkedIn China in April 2018. Compared to Shen Boyang's strategy of using LinkedIn and Red Rabbit to achieve a high-end route and sinking into the market, Lu Jian does not agree. He believes that the two target user groups do not intersect, so he has changed his product operation strategy. In May 2019, LinkedIn China announced a shift from a workplace social platform to a "one-stop career development platform.".

In March 2021, LinkedIn temporarily suspended new user registration within China to ensure that all content and services provided by the platform comply with local laws and regulations. In October 2021, LinkedIn China was suddenly rumored to be shut down. However, LinkedIn quickly refuted the rumors and stated that it would adjust its strategy. In December of the same year, LinkedIn officially launched a new application called "LinkedIn Workplace" in China, aiming to help users connect with career opportunities and assist employers in finding ideal candidates.

At that time, Mohak Shroff, Senior Vice President and Global Engineering Manager of LinkedIn, stated that the launch of the "LinkedIn Workplace" was just the starting point of a new strategy. "In the coming months, LinkedIn will further optimize and create a globally leading user experience based on feedback from users and corporate clients."

However, this innovation failed again after less than two years. In response, LinkedIn pointed out that this decision not only affirms LinkedIn's achievements in assisting Chinese companies in their globalization strategy, but also sees that the "LinkedIn workplace" is always facing increasingly fierce market competition and challenges brought by the macroeconomic environment, which ultimately led them to make the decision to stop serving.

Still not giving up on the Chinese market

According to the 2022 report "Insights into the Online Recruitment and Job Seeking Industry" by Analysys, in the past five years, the operational indicators of the online recruitment industry have significantly increased, with a steady increase in per capita daily usage time and a continuous increase in user stickiness. With cyclical fluctuations, the overall number of active users in the job seeking industry is showing a growth trend, with a user base of around 50 million. Online recruitment has become an important job seeking channel.

In terms of market share of domestic online recruitment platforms, in 2021, 51job, Boss Direct Hiring, and Liepin accounted for 26.6%, 25.63%, and 15.94% respectively, occupying an absolute advantage. At the same time, from the perspective of market structure, 51job, Boss Direct Recruitment, Liepin, Zhilian Recruitment and other companies have remained in the first tier, while LaGou Recruitment and Ganji Direct Recruitment are in the second tier, while Doumi and part-time Cat are in the third tier.

According to data from Analysys International, in March this year, 51job had 18.5 million active users on domestic recruitment platforms, 17.3 million for Boss direct recruitment, and 6.7 million for Liepin, compared to only 959600 in the LinkedIn workplace.

Despite this, LinkedIn has not yet decided to give up the Chinese market. Instead, it has stated that it will continue to deepen its presence in the Chinese market and continue to support Chinese companies in their global development through LinkedIn talent and marketing solutions, as well as the upcoming LinkedIn learning solution to be launched in mainland China later this year.

LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky also stated in a statement in May that LinkedIn will focus its strategy in the Chinese market on helping Chinese companies recruit talent, brand marketing, and skills training overseas.

According to LinkedIn, it brings together over 930 million professionals, 63 million companies, 39000 skills, and 128000 schools worldwide. More than 70% of China's top 100 overseas companies are currently engaged in deep cooperation with LinkedIn. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, the cumulative number of overseas positions posted by Chinese companies on the LinkedIn platform reached 270000.

At present, the "LinkedIn Workplace" APP has been unable to search and download. However, the LinkedIn China WeChat official account has been updated in late July, and said "we will continue to write the story of LinkedIn China here".

What kind of story will LinkedIn China continue to write after its transformation remains to be seen.