The Beijing office of China's internet giant ByteDance, parent company of TikTok Photo: VCG

The 12 tech giants, including JD.com and ByteDance, said their employment and business performance is stable, after media widely reported that several internet giants were engaged in massive layoffs.  

The companies said the flow of employees is in accordance with the market and long-term development, but the total number of employees has remained stable and has increased.

The remarks were made by the 12 tech giants-Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, Baidu, JD.com, NetEase, Weibo, Bilibili and Ant Group, according to the official WeChat account of China's top cyberspace regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), on Friday. 

The CAC said the total number of employees leaving the 12 companies from July 2021 to mid-March 2022 was 216,800, lower than the total number of recruits, 295,900, a net increase in employment of 79,100. Among them, 11 companies recruited more than the number that left.

JD.com said it chose to focus on its main business, and has made some adjustments, which involved some employees, but "the overall number of employees in the group remains stable."

ByteDance said it cut some business departments in the second half of last year, but also increased its recruitment in terms of content quality, technology, and operations, and its total number of employees has increased since last year.

Weibo said it recently optimized the loss-making business, but also expanded the scale of content-related personnel, and it is expected that the total number of employees this year will increase.

Some companies said they are increasing technological innovation for high-level talent, and will also take measures to stabilize current staffers. 

Tencent said that it had 112,800 employees at the end of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 31.3 percent, and will continue to recruit core scientific and technological personnel and outstanding fresh graduates, and the total number of employees is expected to continue to increase.

China's e-commerce platform for services Meituan said there has been a net increase of 17,000 employees since July last year, and it will continue to recruit more fresh graduates this year.

Media reported that JD.com is cutting labor, and its daily layoffs were more than 1,000, according to yicai.com on March 31. 

Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua on Thursday called for all-out efforts to stabilize and expand employment, according to Xinhua News Agency. 

The stability of employment should be placed in a more prominent position, Hu said, urging relevant departments to solve difficulties faced by enterprises in a timely manner and continue to improve employment services.

Global Times