From blockbuster bonuses to pink slips: China’s tech industry nurses a hangover
- The world’s second-largest economy is growing at its slowest pace in nearly three decades, adding to the gloom in the country’s once red-hot internet economy
A long-waited promotion can make you feel on top of the world and an unexpected lay-off can take you to rock bottom. In China’s rapidly changing tech scene, this career roller-coaster can be ridden in days – not months or years.
One ex-employee from Chinese internet major NetEase was promised a promotion ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday after several years at the Hangzhou-based company. But soon after she returned from the seven-day national holiday, NetEase laid her off as part of a companywide restructuring.
“It was sudden and unexpected,” said the ex-employee in her late 20s, who declined to be identified after losing her job. “Some new hires reported for work in mid-February, after the holidays, and just weeks later they were laid off too.”
NetEase, China’s second-biggest online games publisher with a growing e-commerce unit, is one of a wave of technology companies that are laying off employees amid a slowdown in China’s economy – and the retrenchment runs from “low-end” manufacturers to some of the country’s “high-end” tech darlings., including China’s second-largest e-commerce firm JD.com and ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing.
The world’s second-largest economy is growing at its slowest pace in nearly three decades, adding to the gloom in the country’s once red-hot internet economy, which has also seen a pullback in venture capital funding, adding to the uncertainty for some of China’s most well paid office workers.
