oe Tsai, the Chairman of the Alibaba Group, said on Tuesday that the tech giant would continue hiring due to President Xi Jinping’s February
meeting with more business leaders. More so, he also has expressed his concerns regarding some investment announcements in artificial intelligence in the US, as it can stir up some conflict.
Tsai participated in the meeting between Xi and other big names from Chinese tech among which was Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, marking a distinct thawing in Beijing’s approach to the sector.
However, four years ago, a regulatory clampdown on the industry sapped corporate appetite for investments, leading to widespread layoffs. The mentioned meeting was also seen as reflecting policymakers’ concerns regarding slower growth and the US's efforts to limit technological development in the second-largest economy of the world. In the global investment summit held in Hong Kong, Tsai stated that it “was a very, very clear signal to the business community that, go ahead, reinvest in your business and also go out and hire people”.
He also said that Alibaba’s headcount had been declining in the past 12 quarters, adding “So I think we've reached the bottom, and we're going to start to reboot and rehire.".
It is also worth mentioning that China's economy has been beset by a stumbling economy over the last few years, also being kept under pressure due to the debt crisis in the real estate industry, which led to job insecurity, and high unemployment when it comes to the country’s youth as well as weak consumer sentiment.
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Tsai also said, “Once you hire people, that gives people job security, right, job security, and income growth that will translate from business confidence into consumer confidence”.
A partner from Hutong Research named Guo Shan, spoke about private firms such as Alibaba and said that big companies are key to creating jobs for China’s 13 million colleague students which graduate each year. It is also worth mentioning that nearly a quarter of those students usually graduate in IT and internet-related sectors.
Guo Shan also talked about DeepSeek's success, saying that “DeepSeek and particularly its open-source nature has boosted confidence in China's tech sector and widened the application scenarios - so tech firms will need to hire more for businesses anyway,”.
At the same time, Alibaba has also been investing in AI, Tsai mentions “astounded by the type of numbers that's being thrown around” and that “People are talking about $500 billion, several hundred billion dollars. I don't think that's entirely necessary. I think in a way, people are investing ahead of the demand that they're seeing today.”.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech Index has risen by 24% this year, as a result of Xi’s meeting with the industry’s leaders.
