Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group reduced its workforce by 34% in 2025, cutting over 66,000 employees as part of a strategic reset to focus on AI and cloud computing. Headcount dropped from 194,320 to 128,197 in one year. A large portion of the reduction followed Alibaba's exit from offline retail (selling Sun Art Retail Group and Intime). The company's quarterly profit plunged 67%. Separately, dozens of employees at Yuanjing (Alibaba's metaverse unit) were laid off as hype in the sector cooled.

Alibaba is redirecting headcount savings into AI development, with AI-powered search, personalization, and fraud detection reducing the need for manual operations roles. However, this has displaced tens of thousands of workers. Alibaba Cloud's Tongyi AI models are deployed across its ecosystem. The restructuring reflects broader Chinese tech trends of replacing workers with AI. Critics note the 34% workforce reduction came while the company doubled down on AI capabilities.

Alibaba operates under significant Chinese government influence. In 2020, regulators halted Ant Group's $37B IPO (the largest ever planned) after co-founder Jack Ma criticized regulators. Ma subsequently disappeared from public view for months. Alibaba was fined $2.8 billion in 2021 for antitrust violations. The company censors content on its platforms per government direction and has faced pressure to align with Party priorities. Founder Jack Ma ceded control of Ant Group in early 2023.