Slowdown in China!: Alibaba fired 10 thousand people, took steps due to lack of sales
Chinese technology company Alibaba has laid off about 10,000 employees. The reason behind this was said to be a decrease in sales of the product in China and a slow economy. According to the South China Morning Post, more than 9,241 employees left Hangzhou-based Alibaba during the June quarter. This brought down the company’s total workforce to 2,45,700.
By June, the number of employees decreased by more than 13,000
The report said that Alibaba’s workforce has decreased by 13,616 in the last six months i.e. till June, which is the firm’s first decline since March 2016. However, Alibaba’s chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang Yong said the company will hire about 6,000 new university graduates to its headcount this year.
Alibaba’s earnings fall by $3.4 billion in the June quarter
Alibaba reported a 50% decline in June quarter earnings to 22.74 billion yuan ($3.4 billion), from 45.14 billion yuan in the same period last year. Business activity in China is being badly affected and its impact is also being seen on Alibaba’s business.
Billionaire Jack Ma is planning to leave Ant Group – Reports
Last month, reports surfaced that billionaire Jack Ma was planning to give up his control of Ant Group amid pressure from government regulators. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the move is intended as part of an effort to move away from the fintech giant’s affiliate Alibaba Group Holding, which has been under intense government scrutiny.
Chinese regulators are taking strict action
Since last year, Chinese regulatory authorities have been cracking down on domestic tech giants such as Alibaba and Ant Group for ending their dominance in the Internet sector. According to the report, Ma may relinquish control by transferring some of his voting power to other Ant officials, including Chief Executive Eric Jing. Founded in 1999, Alibaba went through a major reshuffle when Ma elected Daniel Zhang as CEO in 2015 and appointed him as chairman in 2019.
Many tech companies have done layoffs
In the last few years, different tech companies are constantly laying off their staff. Crunchbase’s report said that many companies present in Silicon Valley fired about 32,000 employees last month. These include companies like Twitter, TikTok, Shopify, Netflix and Coinbase.
Twitter laid off 30% of its staff a few months ago
The Wall Street Journal reported that micro-blogging company Twitter had also fired about 30% of its staff during Elon Musk’s Twitter deal. Sources say that the company’s expenses are increasing continuously. This is the reason why layoffs were done on such a large scale.
