Tencent, Other Chinese Companies Follow Western Counterparts In Laying off Staff As Economic Slowdown Weighs

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Chinese tech giants like Tencent Holding Ltd TCEHY and TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd implemented fresh layoffs affecting thousands of employees in their latest round of cost-cutting, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The job cuts added on to the tens of thousands of employees already axed by Chinese internet companies since late 2021 after the domestic regulatory crackdown crushed the sector.
Latest layoffs have extended to the companies' core businesses following China's stringent Covid lockdown as opposed to the previous ones, which focused on restructuring loss-making industries and non-core segments.
Tencent looks to cut employees across different business groups through the end of this year, extending to some core businesses, and will likely hit some senior managers.
Tencent saw fewer title approvals from the government and chased games with big budgets.
ByteDance's latest layoffs hit its videogame business, once a promising growth area, and 3,000 additional people from its education unit.
Chinese video-streaming platform Bilibili Inc BILI slashed staff from some core business segments like videogame and live-streaming.
The layoffs followed despite the assurance of government support towards the tech industry to boost the country's fallen economy.
"Macroeconomic risk has overtaken regulatory risk," said an analyst focused on Chinese internet companies. "As growth slows, companies will have to rethink their appropriate business structure," he said.
In the U.S., big tech companies, including Twitter Inc TWTR, Microsoft Corp MSFT, and Tesla Inc TSLA, have begun reducing employees or slowing down hiring due to economic uncertainties.
The Chinese tech giants continue for other new business lines that see growth potential, including the metaverse.
Price Action: TCEHY shares traded lower by 2.31% at $45.33 on the last check Thursday