Alibaba Owned Daraz Group Lays Off 11% of its Employees

In order to adapt to the ‘current market realities,’ e-commerce platform Daraz Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, is cutting its personnel by 11%. The news was shared recently by the group’s CEO Bjarke Mikkelsen on the company’s website. Mikkelsen highlighted a challenging market environment, including a conflict in Europe, massive supply chain interruptions, skyrocketing inflation, rising taxes, and the elimination of key government subsidies in its markets. The group is active in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. In 2021, Daraz reported having 500 million consumers and 10,000 staff. Over the past two years, the company has invested $100 million in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Daraz, the largest e-commerce retail platform in Pakistan, was created in 2012 and acquired by Chinese behemoth Alibaba in 2018. There are more than one hundred thousand small and medium-sized businesses operating on the platform in Pakistan. Ehsan Saya, managing director of Daraz Pakistan, told a news source that Pakistan is the company’s largest market and that Pakistan employs the largest number of Daraz employees.

He adds, “about one-third of the Pakistani staff is comprised of regional teams that collaborate with teams from Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Singapore, and China.” Saya confirmed to Reuters that the 11 percent reduction in group-wide personnel will also result in an 11% t reduction in Pakistan.

On the other hand, the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters regarding the number of staff affected by the move and restructuring details. Mikkelsen stated in the letter that Daraz was able to raise the number of active shoppers from three million in 2018 to more than 15 million today, with “an average order growth of about 100 percent till last year.”

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