Tencent announces layoffs first time in 10 years, fires nearly 5,500 employees

Tencent employed 110,715 people at the end of June, which is nearly 4.7 per cent down from what was recorded in the month of March.

Tencent announces layoffs after missing quarterly revenue estimates. As reported by Bloomberg, the company employed 110,715 people at the end of June, which is nearly 4.7 per cent down from what was recorded in the month of March. Apple is among the latest tech companies to announce job cuts. The company has fired around 100 employees lately.

To share specific numbers, Tencent has trimmed nearly 5,500 employees from its payroll in the last quarter. Having said that, China’s largest technology corporation also froze hiring for the first time in a decade as a measure of cost-cutting. Meanwhile, some of the other top tech companies, including Google have fired a number of employees stating economic downtime and organizational restructuring. Another Chinese tech company, Alibaba, recently laid off nearly 10,000 employees as a part of cost-cutting measures amid the slowing economy. Following the layoffs, Alibaba trimmed its overall headcount to around 2,45,700.

Several other tech companies, mostly in the Silicon Valley, together fired more than 32000 employees last month, a detailed report published by Crunchbase stated. Some of these companies include: Twitter, TikTok, Shopify, Netflix, and Coinbase, among others.

Recently, Google and Apple announced plans for layoffs and freeze hiring. CEO Sundar Pichai in a latest interview said that Google has too many employees but very few work and also asked everyone to work harder than ever before. Pichai told employees to improve productivity and asked them for ideas on how to get "better results faster. "There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have," he said.

Some top Google executives have hinted at layoffs at the firm. They recently warned that if employees do not boost their performance, they should just get prepared for layoffs. These executives also said that whether the layoffs will happen or not will all depend on the next quarterly earnings.

Earlier this week, Apple laid off some of its workers. The tech giant has reportedly sacked as many as 100 contract-based recruiters in the past week to save some costs. It is said that Apple fired around 100 contract workers who were responsible for hiring new employees for the company.

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