Shopee axes more employees in its third round of layoffs – staff in S’pore office also affected

Sea’s e-commerce arm Shopee is letting go of more of its employees, in another round of layoffs starting Monday (Nov 14).

This marks the third round of layoffs Shopee has made this year, following its most recent layoffs in September.

In this latest round of layoffs, the affected teams include those in human resources and from learning and development, according to posts shared on LinkedIn. However, it is unclear how many people in Singapore have been affected by the latest job cuts.

Shocking news for affected staff

A particular post by Angelica Pasiola, who was the former Multimedia Artist at Shopee’s Regional People Team revealed the latest layoffs was not made known to staffs beforehand, so the news had come as a shock to her.

“Today, 14 November 2022, as most of us are back to work in the office, I arrived early in the morning, perhaps around 9 am, excitedly opened up a project I’m working on and kickstart my week with a good ol’ editing grind,” she wrote.

“Then, that’s when I got the news, we had an urgent meeting and we were told that there will be another round of layoffs today and some of us will be affected. And there it was, receiving an email and reading the words “…Your role is impacted…”.”

She later learnt that her whole team was affected by the layoffs, which hit her even more.

In response to this layoffs, Shopee said in a media statement that they are currently working to support the affected staff during this transition.

“We continue to carefully review our business projects and priorities to ensure we are optimising operating efficiency, in line with our goal of achieving self-sufficiency,” it added.

The company previously expressed that its primary objective for the next 12 to 18 months is to achieve positive cashflow as soon as possible.

To reach this target, Sea co-founder Forrest Li had announced in an internal memo that its top management will forego their salaries. He said that the leadership team will not take any cash compensation “until the company reaches self-sufficiency”.

In addition, the company will also tighten its expenses as seeks to cut costs. In particular, the company will limit spending on business travel, including flights, meals and hotel stays; as well as cull reimbursement for meals and entertainment bills.

More than 7,000 employees laid off this year

Over the past six months, it is reported that Sea has laid off more than 7,000 employees, or around 10 per cent of its global workforce.

Earlier this year, Shopee had also let go of its regional workers in its ShopeeFood and ShopeePay teams earlier this year. Then in early September, Shopee also trimmed staff in its gaming arm Garena and research and development unit Sea Labs.

Separately, Shopee also made headlines recently for withdrawing multiple job offers based in Singapore. The e-commerce firm reasoned that due to adjustments in hiring plans, a number of roles at Shopee are no longer available.

Besides Sea, other tech giants such as Meta and Twitter, are also in the midst of layoffs.

Featured Image Credit: Edgar Su via Reuters