The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

China Alibaba Jack Ma

Jack Ma ceases Alibaba hiring admitting the company grew ‘too quickly’

Author

By John McCarthy, Opinion Editor

April 29, 2015 | 2 min read

Jack Ma, the billionaire founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced he will be hiring no more staff for the rest of the year.

In a company memo transmitted through Alibaba messaging app Laiwang and picked up by Reuters, Ma said the company had grown "too quickly".

“Alibaba has really developed too quickly... this year our entire group headcount will not go up by one person. The purpose is simple: we need to get into formation."

Ma concluded: “I think 30,000 people is efficient, when one leaves, we'll bring one in.”

In 2014, Alibaba saw a 63 per cent increase in staff with it announcing 29 December 2014 that it had 34,081 employees.

The move comes a week before the company announces its quarterly earnings 7 May.

China Alibaba Jack Ma

Content created with:

Alibaba

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational e-commerce, retail, Internet, AI and technology conglomerate founded in 1999.

Find out more

More from China

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +