Chinese tech giants are quietly shrinking their workforce — echoing a pattern playing out in Silicon Valley.
In 2025, e-commerce major AlibabaiAlibabaAlibaba, founded in 1999 by Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma, is one of the most prominent global e-commerce companies that operates platforms like AliExpress, Taobao, and Tmall.READ MORE reduced its head count by 34% as it continues to axe its workforce in its offline business units to focus on artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure. Search giant BaiduiBaiduBaidu is a Chinese technology company that operates the country’s biggest search engine and video-streaming service iQiyi.READ MORE ended 2025 with nearly 7% fewer employees, while electric-vehicle maker BYD cut roughly 10% of its workforce. These numbers were disclosed in the companies’ annual reports, filed at the end of March.
While job cuts at tech companies are often framed as part of an AI-driven transformation, Chinese experts point to broader economic pressures — such as a slowing economy, weak consumer demand, and a prolonged property crisis — for these layoffs. The trend also reflects a correction after years of rapid hiring, experts told Rest of World.
“Many of these companies expanded rapidly during the internet boom, hiring at an exponential pace,” said Sun Zhongwei, a public administration professor at South China Normal University. “The changes in their organization structure are much more about adjusting to a downturn after that cycle of growth than being about AI displacing jobs.”
