Alibaba workforce shrinks 34% in 2025 as Chinese tech giant doubles down on AI
The Alibaba stand on the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Center in Shanghai, China, on July 5, 2024.
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Alibaba‘s workforce shrank by roughly 34% over the course of 2025, as the corporate offloaded a few of its offline retail companies whereas doubling down on synthetic intelligence.
The Chinese e-commerce and know-how giant ended December with 128,197 staff, down from 194,320 a yr earlier.
The disclosure of its newest headcount got here in an earnings report launched Thursday that confirmed the agency’s revenue plunging 67% and its income lacking expectations for the final three months of final yr.
The firm’s shares in Hong Kong have been buying and selling down 6% Friday.
The bulk of Alibaba’s workforce discount was revealed in its March 2025 quarter following the sale of Sun Art retail group on the finish of 2024. The tech giant additionally exited its stake in division retailer chain Intime across the identical interval.
China’s second-largest tech firm by market cap is amongst a raft of different main tech companies which have lowered headcounts in the previous yr from Silicon Valley to Hangzhou, China.
Alibaba’s employees has supported its sprawling community of enterprise items spanning e-commerce, cloud, logistics, and different associated providers.
However, Alibaba has been steadily decreasing headcount in latest years, though the most recent cuts have been a lot bigger than the 11% discount in December 2024 from the earlier yr.
This comes as Alibaba has sought to dump labor-intensive holdings and restructure its core companies, with a larger focus on synthetic intelligence.
The tech giant goals to develop into a full-stack AI firm spanning semiconductor manufacturing to computing and AI fashions.
The firm this week launched an agentic AI service identified as Wukong for companies, and raised costs for its cloud and storage providers by as a lot as 34% as a consequence of rising demand and provide chain prices.
Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu stated throughout an earnings name Thursday that the corporate aimed to develop its cloud and AI income to over $100 billion yearly over the following 5 years.
