Shopee is the latest tech company to trim its sails, reportedly axing hundreds of developer roles globally. It looks like they are jumping on the same bandwagon as many other companies around the world, shaking up staff numbers while putting a massive focus on baking AI into their daily workflows and building out shiny new tech services.
According to a Bloomberg report, the job cuts kicked off this week and are hitting around 8% of Shopee’s entire developer workforce. While it is still a bit hazy whether these layoffs are a direct consequence of their parent company’s recent AI push, the timing certainly raises an eyebrow.
Sea, the parent company behind both Shopee and the Garena gaming platform, is undergoing some pretty major structural shifts at the moment. This all comes on the heels of Chief Executive Officer Forrest Li declaring that a trillion-dollar market capitalisation could actually be within reach, provided the company goes all in on AI.
This move may or may not affect employees in Malaysia, but Singaporean employees are already facing layoffs.