Shopee fires 50% of its Thai staff
E-commerce platform Shopee today announced 50% of its Thai staff are being fired alongside employees from Indonesia and Vietnam. The company, under the Singaporean tech group Sea, did not give a reason for the mass redundancies.
DealStreetAsia reported that Shopee has informed all staff on the redundancy hit list to pack up their stuff and wait for an official termination letter at home.
The announcement was made during a town hall meeting with staff from every branch in attendance.
Most of Sea group’s revenue is generated by Singaporean game developer and publisher, Garena. And in the first quarter of this year Shopee increased sales by 38.7 percent, but most of that income was generated from advertising costs and fees.
Last year, Shopee closed its branch in France after only 5 months because profits didn’t go as well as expected. Another branch in India also closed after 6 months because of the government’s policy to ban Chinese applications. More than 300 people lost their jobs in India because of that.
Thai employees on social media claimed they were shocked at the layoff announcement, saying it happened suddenly without advanced warning. Others added the Shopee human resource team say they would discuss compensation later. Another employee revealed he had been working for the company for 7 years and is surprised at what has happened. Another man says many team members of his team left the company group chat, and now he knows why.
