LinkedIn said on Monday it would lay off 716 people, or about 4% of its workforce, and shut down its job-search software in China.

The decision comes as several technology companies, including Amazon, Microsoft (LinkedIn's parent company), and Alphabet (Google's parent company), have announced major layoffs in recent months.

In a letter to employees seen by Reuters, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said the move to cut roles in its sales, operations and support teams was aimed at streamlining the company's operations and would remove layers to help make quicker decisions.

"With the market and customer demand fluctuating more, and to serve emerging and growth markets more effectively, we are expanding the use of vendors," Roslansky wrote.

Roslansky also said in the letter that the changes would result in creating 250 new jobs. A LinkedIn spokesperson said that employees affected by the cuts would be eligible to apply for those roles.

LinkedIn also said InCareer, its localized job search app for professionals in mainland China, will be phased out on August 9. Citing a challenging environment in the Chinese market, LinkedIn in December 2021 replaced LinkedIn China with InCareer, a slimmed-down job search app without any social features.

Here is LinkedIn's statement on the closure of InCareer:

After careful consideration, we've made the decision to discontinue InCareer effective August 9, 2023. Despite our initial progress, InCareer faced fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate, which ultimately led us to the decision of discontinuing the service.

Until August 9, you will be able to download your InCareer account data in your Settings.

After August 9, we will delete all InCareer account data.

InCareer being discontinued will not impact other LinkedIn accounts and services.  

LinkedIn will continue to have a presence in China and will focus on assisting companies operating in China to access economic opportunity through our Talent and Marketing solutions, and later this year through our Learning Solutions.