Thousands face the axe as Shopee trims its regional operations
Sea Group, the operator of the ecommerce platform “Shopee”, announced on Tuesday that it will lay off thousands of employees in the region to modernise its business operations.
The company said it has notified employees in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam who face the axe.
According to DealStreetAsia, ShopeePay and ShopeeFood in Thailand will lay off half their workforce.
Meanwhile, many netizens claiming to be former Shopee employees said on social media that they had been let go and that the HR department will contact them over severance pay.
Shopee stopped hiring in Southeast Asia a long time ago. The ecommerce platform has been suffering losses for many years, and Sea Group’s revenue mostly comes from the video game operator Garena.
Based on the Business Development Department’s data, Shopee suffered losses worth 4.74 billion in 2019, 4.17 billion in 2020 and 4.97 billion in 2021.
However, purchases via the Shopee platform in the first quarter of this year rose by 71.3 per cent year on year, generating $1.9 billion in revenue. The value of total transactions during this period also rose by 38.7 per cent year on year, generating $17.4 billion in revenue.
