Chinese billionaire Jack Ma (馬雲) said he is freezing all hiring at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) because the e-commerce company is expanding too quickly.
The hiring freeze also applies to some companies controlled by Alibaba, Ma said in a speech to employees. The 30,000 current workers should be enough to maintain operations, Ma said in a transcript posted to an official Alibaba account on the social media application Laiwang (來往).
Alibaba, which is Asia’s largest Internet company, processes more than 11 billion orders per year from 334 million active buyers.
Ma, who has ambitions to expand service to more than 2 billion consumers by 2019, said Alibaba would only hire a new employee when a current one quits.
“This year, our entire group’s headcount won’t increase by one person,” Ma said in the speech posted on Tuesday. “The purpose is simple: We need to get into formation. I think 30,000 people is efficient.”
Alibaba faces slowing revenue growth in China and is boosting spending to develop its overseas business.
Ma wants more than 50 percent of sales to come from outside China, and the company aims to connect with more than 10 million small businesses abroad.
The company is betting on emerging markets — including Russia, Brazil and India — to sustain the next wave of exports, and it is trying to help Chinese buyers gain greater access to brands from the US and Europe.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last