Massive layoffs at big US-based tech companies like Meta, Google, Twitter and Amazon have also affected companies on the other side of the world.
However, the geographical distance and less communication of its corporate decisions meant that the details were not immediately known.
One example is Tencent, which last November launched a round of job cuts targeting its video streaming, gaming and cloud business units.
The layoffs affected three of Tencent’s six business units: platform and content, which brings together its video and news platforms, the gaming-focused interactive entertainment department, and the cloud and smart industries suite.
The massive layoffs had an explanation at Tencent Music Entertainment: a drop of almost 6 percent in revenue from the immediately preceding quarter. That weakening occurred because the business of advertising and paid users on China’s most popular audio streaming platform grew very little.
Alibaba and the mass layoffs of 2022
The cooling of the global economy has also impacted another Chinese giant: Alibaba.
The financial results published this Thursday, February 23, allow us to see that the Hangzhou-based company got rid of 4 thousand workers in the last quarter of last year.
This, added to the previous separations, total about 19 thousand in all of 2022, he says Bloomberg.
The cause was the same that affected the rest of the technology companies: the excessive growth during the months of Covid, which came to an abrupt halt after the end of the pandemic and the beginning of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
All of this reduced consumer and business spending on advertising, which impacted revenue. So,Alibaba took a “more disciplined” approach with the idea of saving costs in areas that do not generate long-term value.
These changes marked a turning point in the aggressive advance in global markets that the Chinese giant was making until 2020.
Alibaba, which still has a workforce of 240,000 employees according to its latest reports, continues to be one of the most important employers among Chinese private companies.
Beyond the number of layoffs in 2022, Alibaba on Thursday reported sales and profits that beat Wall Street pundits’ average expectations, sending shares up nearly 10 percent.
Beyond this, the massive layoffs in the last months of 2022, which grew in relation to those of the previous months, show that the company is adjusting its size to face a recessionary economy, even in a scenario with signs of recovery in China.
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