China’s Big Tech sees new wave of job cuts as Covid lockdowns hurt economy
- Staff reduction is happening at various departments in Tencent and Alibaba, according to sources interviewed by the Post and local media reports
- The deepening cuts come amid regulatory uncertainty in the tech sector and a slowing economy dragged down by strict Covid control measures
A new wave of job cuts has hit China’s largest technology companies, as regulatory pressure and Covid lockdowns battered their business.
It is yet unclear how much of those firms’ work forces would be affected because few are willing to publicly disclose their plans, but there have been extensive reports of job reductions across a wide spectrum of job functions in the sector, according to local media and sources interviewed by the South China Morning Post.
Video gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings is laying off about 100 people from its sports channels, Thepaper.cn reported on Friday. The Chinese news website cited an insider of the Shenzhen-based company, who said many departments are slashing headcount.
The scale of job cuts varies from team to team, depending on their profitability and nature of business, a source told the Post.
Businesses with heavy losses, including cloud computing and video, were among the worst-affected at Tencent, having suffered at least two rounds of job cuts since April, another source said.
Occasionally, entire teams of more than 20 employees were laid off, according to a third source. All sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Tencent president Martin Lau Chi-ping said in March that the company would exit or streamline some noncore businesses to control headcount, but the total staff number would still be higher by the end of this year compared with 2021.