For the second time in a row this year, LinkedIn, the world largest professional network and social media platform that focuses on business and employment, has shown another large pool of its staff the exit door from the company.

In a nerve-racking announcement made by the company recently, not less than 668 employees that cut across engineering, talent and finance were stripped of their jobs.

The lay off, which accounts for about 3% of the total staff strength of the company, is an offshoot of the previous mass sack that hit employees of the social media giant this year.

In May, about 716 staffs of LinkedIn that cut across sales, operations and support teams were relieved of their jobs. According to Reuters, the tech company has in total laid off 142, 516 employees in the first half of 2023, citing slowdown in hiring, with a decline in advertising spending as headwinds.

With the recent decision by the American- based business oriented tech-platform to send almost 700 employees back to the labour market, there are glaring indications that all is not well with the global economy as big techs among others around the world have embraced the layoff strategy as a means of  surviving the rocky boat.

In August, Masterlock, an American company that specializes in the production of padlocks, safes and security products announced that it would be laying off about 300 staffs in November and will completely shut down its operation in March 2024.

Similarly, Chipmaker Qualcomm, one of the largest microchip manufacturers globally is set to lay off 1,258 employees by December. This was revealed in a formal notification signed and released by the company’s legal counsel.

Other companies that have toed a similar path include Flexport, Qualtrics, Washington Post and many others. None of these companies is laying off less than 200 members of its staff due to the current economic reality.

As it is in America and other developed countries, so is the experience in Nigeria, the largest black nation of the world as well as the entire African continent.

In February this year, Jumia, a Pan-Africa technology company announced that it had laid off 900 employees which represents about 20% of its workforce. According to the e-commerce company, the decision was taken to allow it save about 30% of its monthly staff cost income so as to confront the economic headwinds.

In the same vein, Ride-hailing company, Bolt made it known in February that it had laid off 17 of 70 employees in Nigeria. In the notification letter sent to the affected staffs, the rationale behind the decision was to restructure operations in Nigeria.

Aside the big techs that regularly hug the news headlines, there were other layoffs carried out under the table by various organizations with a view to meeting the overhead cost and remain in business.

Despite the emergence of technology and digital revolution, the struggle for the tech companies to retain their best brains is becoming daring and daunting by the day as a result of the global economic crisis. It is a disheartening and disturbing reflection of the global economy in the outgoing year which has seriously placed a question mark on the certainty of job security in the giant tech companies globally.

As year 2023 inches to an end, it is hoped that companies would look critically inward and devise another means of surviving the economic challenge that may possibly be insulated in year 2024 without having to push more employees back to the labour Market.