Profitable, Growing, and Laying Off: The New Corporate Normal

LinkedIn and Walmart both made cuts in May 2026 despite strong business performance, exposing a corporate workforce pattern that HR leaders can no longer treat as isolated news.

| Written by Tripti Mehta

The platform built for professional networking is now asking its own people to network their way to new jobs.

LinkedIn, a subsidiary of Microsoft, announced on May 13, 2026 that it is cutting approximately 5% of its global workforce, around 900 positions, as part of an organisational restructuring aimed at redirecting resources toward faster-growing business areas. Revenue grew 12% year over year in the most recent quarter, making this a rare case of performance-era job cuts. 

Teams across the Global Business Organisation, marketing, engineering, and product divisions are among those affected. Sources told Reuters the layoffs are not about AI replacing jobs, a notable departure from the dominant 2026 narrative in which most large tech employers have cited AI investment as their explicit rationale. More than 103,000 tech workers have lost their jobs globally in 2026 so far, even as Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta collectively commit roughly $725 billion to AI infrastructure. 

Walmart cut or relocated roughly 1,000 corporate workers in May 2026 as it consolidated global technology and product teams, while continuing to hire aggressively on the sales floor and in fulfillment centres. The contrast is pointed: back-office efficiency is being pursued at the same time that frontline bodies remain in demand, creating two very different workforce experiences within the same organisation. 

For HR leaders, the throughline is clear: whether the stated reason is efficiency, growth reallocation, or AI transition, restructuring lands the same way for affected employees.

Source: Reuters, The HR Digest, Layoffs.fyi, Wall Street Journal