China's Tech Giants Target New Layoffs As Business Slows

"China has been signaling an easing of its regulatory campaign against the technology sector, but the country's tech giants are moving ahead with more job cuts as growth stalls.

Companies including Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd. are implementing fresh layoffs affecting thousands of employees in their latest round of cost-cutting, current and former employees said. These job cuts come on top of the tens of thousands of employees already axed by Chinese internet companies since late last year after Beijing's regulatory crackdown swamped the sector.

Previous job cuts were mostly focused on restructuring unprofitable businesses and noncore segments. But as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 prompts harsh lockdowns, roiling the Chinese economy, some companies are extending layoffs to core businesses.

The fresh round of layoffs points to the scars that the regulatory assault and macroeconomic headwinds have left on some tech companies -- a worrisome development for Chinese officials as they turn in part to tech giants in hopes of salvaging a slowing economy and worsening employment landscape.

In recent months, top officials have pledged to support China's digital economy and encouraged its tech giants to develop core technologies such as artificial intelligence, as well as infrastructure that would support areas including industrial internet and cloud computing.

Since then, tech-company stock prices have bounced back from multiyear lows.

"Macroeconomic risk has overtaken regulatory risk," said Kelvin Ho, an analyst focused on Chinese internet companies at Fitch Ratings. "As growth slows, companies will have to rethink their appropriate business structure," he said.

In the U.S., big tech companies including Twitter Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Inc. have begun reducing the number of employees or slowed their recruiting efforts as economic uncertainties grow, following earlier rapid expansion.

Tencent, whose revenue barely grew in the quarter ended March 31, plans to cut employees across different business groups through the end of this year, according to employees briefed on the matter.

 The job cuts will extend to some core businesses and will likely hit some senior managers, the people said.

The team operating WeChat, Tencent's ubiquitous chat, social-media and payments app, is letting go of dozens of employees working on its short-video service Channels, some of them said.

The company's videogame unit has started cutting dozens from a team that runs gamer communities, some of the people said. Multiple in-house game developer studios might also trim staff in the coming months, they said, as Tencent anticipates fewer title approvals from the government and streamlines its focus on games with big budgets.

The final number of employees to be reduced hasn't been decided yet, but it could involve at least hundreds of people, some of the employees familiar with the plan said.

The job cuts are part of Tencent's recent campaign to control costs and improve efficiency. In late May, the company told staff that promotions no longer mean automatic salary increases, according to a memo seen by The Wall Street Journal. It has also urged senior managers to pay closer attention to cost management, risk control and compliance, according to another memo.

Tencent didn't respond to requests for comment.

At ByteDance, the Chinese owner of short-video app TikTok, the fresh round of layoffs is hitting its videogame business, once a promising growth area. Beijing-based ByteDance tapped into the gaming industry in 2019 and bought several established game studios, aiming to challenge Tencent's dominance in the sector. But those ambitions have been thwarted by regulatory and economic pressures.

Since May, ByteDance has let go of more than half of the roughly 300 employees working at a Shanghai-based videogame-development studio that was dissolved earlier in June, according to current employees. It has also cut dozens of people from a game-distribution unit, they said.

Separately, ByteDance is cutting around 3,000 additional people from its education unit as it faces lukewarm demand in that sphere, current and former employees said. Those cuts come on top of the thousands of employees that ByteDance laid off from the unit after Beijing tightened rules on online tutoring in July 2021. It will retain nearly 1,000 employees in the unit to run businesses aimed at adults and focused on smart devices, the people said.

ByteDance didn't respond to requests for comment.

Even as they trim jobs in some areas, Chinese tech giants are still hiring for other new business lines where they see growth potential, including the metaverse -- virtual spaces where people interact via digital avatars.

Tencent has set up a business unit focused on immersive technologies such as virtual- and augmented-reality, Steven Ma, Tencent's senior vice president, said this week, according to a transcript of remarks shared by the company. Tencent aims to build a team of some 300 employees, according to employees familiar with the plan.

Tencent is also expanding its teams overseas, Mr. Ma said.

ByteDance is still recruiting people for various positions in China and overseas, according to employees and external headhunters." [1]

1.  China's Tech Giants Target New Layoffs As Business Slows
Huang, Raffaele. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 01 July 2022: A.1.   

 

A big autonomous ship crossed the Atlantic

"The Mayflower, an unmanned robotic ship that recreated English colonists' 1620 voyage on the Mayflower, reached the coast of Massachusetts on Thursday.

 

More than 400 years after the colonists' historic voyage from England, the newly autonomous ship Mayflower rendezvoused with an escort off the coast of Massachusetts, was towed to Plymouth Harbor under U.S. Coast Guard regulations and docked near an exact replica of the original Mayflower.

 

 

The 15 m long trimaran controlled by artificial intelligence technology had neither a captain nor a helmsman; there were no people in it at all.

 

The first attempt of a solar-powered ship to cross the Atlantic in 2021 was accompanied by technical problems and eventually the ship had to be returned to its port - Plymouth, England, from which the Pilgrim Fathers set sail in 1620.

 

In April, the autonomous ship set sail again from southwest England, but mechanical problems diverted it to Portugal's Azores and then to Canada.

 

"With nobody on board, obviously you can't do the necessary mechanical, physical repairs," said Rob High, head of software at International Business Machines (IBM), the world's leading computer services provider, which is helping with the project.

 

"It's also part of the learning process," he added.

 

The ship left Halifax, Nova Scotia on Monday and successfully reached the port of Plymouth in four days.

 

Marine research nonprofit ProMare built the ship with IBM and used it to collect data on whales, microplastic pollution, and other research.

 

Small experimental autonomous ships have crossed the Atlantic before, but the Mayflower is said to be the first ship of its size to do so.

 

Completing the voyage "means we can start analyzing the ship's voyage data" and the operation of the AI ​​system, High said. According to him, the prospect of such unmanned ships constantly sailing means that it will be easier to collect information on "all the things that scientists care about"."

 

Didelis autonominis laivas perplaukė Atlantą

"Robotinis laivas be įgulos „Mayflower“, pakartojęs anglų kolonistų 1620 metų kelionę laivu „Mayflower“, ketvirtadienį pasiekė Masačusetso pakrantę.

 

Daugiau, kaip 400 metų po istorinės kolonistų kelionės iš Anglijos naujasis autonominis laivas „Mayflower“ priartėjęs prie Masačusetso krantų susitiko su lydinčiu laivu, pagal JAV pakrančių apsaugos taisykles buvo nutemptas į Plimuto uostą ir prišvartuotas netoli originaliojo laivo „Mayflower“ tikslios kopijos.

 

 

Dirbtinio intelekto technologija valdomas 15 m ilgio trimaranas neturėjo nei kapitono, nei laivavedžio; jame išvis nebuvo jokių žmonių.

 

Saulės energija varomo laivo pirmąjį bandymą perplaukti Atlantą 2021 metais lydėjo techninės problemos ir galiausiai laivą teko sugrąžinti į jo uostą – Plimutą Anglijoje, iš kurio 1620-aisias išplaukė tėvai piligrimai.

 

Balandžio mėnesį autonominis laivas vėl išplaukė iš Pietvakarių Anglijos, bet dėl mechaninių problemų buvo nukreiptas į Portugalijos Azorų salas, o paskui – į Kanadą.

 

„Kai laive nieko nėra, aišku, negalima atlikti reikalingų mechaninio, fizinio remonto darbų“, – sakė Robas High, pasaulyje pirmaujančios kompiuterinių paslaugų teikėjos „International Business Machines“ (IBM), padedančios įgyvendinti šį projektą, programinės įrangos vadovas.

 

„Tai taip pat mokymosi proceso dalis“, – pridūrė jis.

 

Pirmadienį laivas išplaukė iš Halifakso Naujojoje Škotijoje ir per keturias dienas sėkmingai pasiekė Plimuto uostą.

 

Jūrinių tyrimų ne pelno organizacija „ProMare“ su IBM pastatė laivą ir naudojo jį, rinkdama duomenis apie banginius, taršą mikroplastiku, vykdydama kitus mokslinius tyrimus.

 

Maži eksperimentiniai autonominiai laivai jau anksčiau yra perplaukę Atlantą, bet „Mayflower“ vadinamas pirmuoju tai padariusiu tokio dydžio laivu.

 

Kelionės užbaigimas „reiškia, kad galime pradėti analizuoti laivo kelionės duomenis“ ir DI sistemos darbą, sakė R. High. Jo teigimu, tokių laivų be įgulų nuolatinio plaukiojimo perspektyva reiškia, kad bus lengviau rinkti informaciją apie „visus mokslininkams rūpimus dalykus“.”

 

Fueled by our tax money and the drones it buys, fascism is rearing its head again in Europe: the words of Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Melnyk cannot be erased so easily

"The most famous Ukrainian ambassador relativizes the crimes of the Fascists Banderites. Despite the quick rescue operation of politicians from Warsaw and Kiev, Andriy Melnyk's statements may stay with us longer, undermining mutual trust.

 

So far Andrij Melnyk has specialized in criticizing Germany, where he has been an ambassador for many years. He is a celebrity, he hardly leaves German TV and radio studios. 

 

This time, during the interview, he enthusiastically defended Fascist Stepan Bandera. The his Fascist organization UPA genocide against Poles is a retaliation for the persecution of Ukrainians in Poland before the Second World War, and otherwise nothing special: Poles also murdered, on the same scale, and now they use the matter politically ... many thousands of Jews were massacred.

 

After the sanctions on Russia, difficult historical issues were silenced, and they were supposed to stop spoiling relations between our nations. Therefore, the words of the famous, experienced diplomat caused such shock and indignation. Being aware of the consequences for the intricately and sacrificing alliance between Warsaw and Kiev, which was being built, Polish diplomacy launched a rescue operation. Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau and Minister Jakub Kumoch from the presidential palace calmed the situation on Twitter: the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs distanced itself from Melnyk and quickly intervened.

 

"The opinion of the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, expressed in an interview with a German journalist, is his personal opinion and does not express the position of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs," says the statement issued by the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Oleh Nikolenko.

 

The ministry of diplomacy in Kiev considered the ambassador's statements to be a private opinion, which is not in line with the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is strange that such are the private opinions of the ambassador. They fit a nationalist publicist or radical activist, not a diplomat. 

 

Privately, I am afraid that they will continue to raise concerns of at least some of Polish society. Melnyk's words cannot be erased so easily. He has hurt Kiev at a time when it is suffering defeats and it feels more and more pressure from the weary West to end this operation.

 

Five months ago, great indignation was caused by the words of the commander of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach. At a time when Russia was sending tens of thousands of troops to the border with Ukraine, Schönbach, at a meeting in India, discussed Putin, who deserves respect, and Crimea, which will never return under Kiev's control. It quickly turned out to be the vice admiral's private opinion, although some suspected it had revealed the German way of thinking. A moment later, Schönbach resigned.

 

Schönbach was particularly strongly criticized by Ambassador Melnyk, who spoke of German arrogance and megalomania. He praised the dismissal of the German navy commander, but decided that this was not a sufficient reaction from Berlin: it was not enough to rebuild trust."

 

What about now?