Alibaba Group Holding's domestic e-commerce units Taobao and Tmall are hiring more than 2,000 graduates in a sign that Big Tech firms in China are gearing up for growth after years of downsizing. The graduates are being recruited to fill roles ranging from engineering to algorithms and data in places including the company's hometown Hangzhou, as well as Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou. The recruitment effort forms part of an overall plan by Alibaba to add 15,000 employees – including 3,000 fresh graduates – across the company this year. The tech giant’s return to active hiring follows noticeable cuts in its payroll. Alibaba had 228,675 employees as of the end of June, down 6,541 from the end of March, according to its latest earnings report.
Competitor Tencent Holdings also announced it would be offering a large number of openings at home and abroad, covering artificial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics and the industrial internet. The Shenzhen-based firm had 104,500 employees at the end of June, a decline of 6,200 from a year ago, its financial statements showed. China’s youth unemployment hit a new high in June, raising pressure for authorities to boost hiring of young people. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suspended the release of youth unemployment data, sparking public concerns that the situation could be worsening. Chinese tech companies, which had been under intense regulatory scrutiny over the past few years as Beijing moved to curb the “irrational expansion of capital” and pursue “common prosperity”, now play an important role in absorbing some of the estimated 11.5 million university graduates who left school this summer.
The government’s crackdown on the internet industry had seen trillions of dollars wiped off company valuations and thousands of jobs eliminated. But as economic headwinds mounted, Beijing’s attitude took a big turn in late 2022, as it began to highlight the positive value that internet platforms can bring to the country. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in July praised internet companies for “advancing high-level scientific and technological self-reliance efforts” and “contributing to the promotion of high-quality development”. That high-profile endorsement was followed by a friendly meeting between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and representatives from major tech companies, including Alibaba Cloud Founder Wang Jian and Xiaohongshu Founder Qu Fang. With Beijing easing its control over Big Tech, several other tech firms have also expanded recruitment.
Late last month, on-demand local services giant Meituan, which runs the country’s leading food delivery platform, announced 6,000 new positions that were open to fresh graduates – up from 5,000 similar vacancies last year. Kuaishou Technology, operator of China’s No 2 short-video app, unveiled more than 200 new job openings that month, the South China Morning Post reports.
