E-COMMERCE platform Shopee is axing more employees as its parent company Sea strains under the pressure to turn profitable amid volatile market conditions.
Singapore-based staff were informed by management on Monday (Sep 19) morning that further cuts will be made to teams, including human resources, regional operations, marketing, and product and engineering, sources told The Business Times (BT).
The announcement was made in department-wide town halls, which were impromptu and quick, one source said.
Some employees, including those in Singapore and China, began receiving email notices of their layoffs shortly after the announcement, sources said. Staff in Indonesia have been retrenched as well, according to local media.
It is unclear how many employees and markets will be affected. A Shopee spokesperson told BT: “These changes are part of our ongoing efforts to optimise operating efficiency with the goal of achieving self-sufficiency across our business. We are extending support to our affected colleagues during this transition.”
Shopee’s parent company, Sea, has taken massive cost-cutting steps in recent months as it battles increasingly uncertain macroeconomic conditions that roiled tech markets and shaved about US$170 billion from the company’s market value since its October high.
Sea, one of the most active recruiters of tech talent, earlier rescinded dozens of job offers after suffering widening losses and slower revenue growth, according to a Reuters report.
Shopee is also set to shut local operations in a few international markets, while gaming unit Garena, often regarded as the company’s cash cow, will reportedly cut hundreds of staff in Shanghai.
Chief executive and founder Forrest Li and his management team are forgoing salaries until the group reaches self-sufficiency.
Li, in a company-wide memo last Thursday seen by BT, said achieving positive cashflow was the group’s top priority for the next 12 to 18 months.
“Right now, thanks to years of prudent action and hard work, we have a solid cash base that puts us in a safer position than many of our counterparts in the tech sector,” Li said in the memo, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
“However, we can easily run through this cash base if we are not careful, and with investors fleeing for ‘safe haven’ investments, we do not anticipate being able to raise funds in the market.”
Additional reporting by Wong Pei Ting

See liao sibei song la all this FAANG wannabes kena retrench 😂

What is work
 

Anyone laid off?
Can go home and relax.
So good no need to work.
Can enjoy life.

i worked 9 years as SWE / tech lead before my salary became 8k.

You got scammed hard. Now all these kids earning 5-6k with 0 YOE already.

My team got this fresh uni kid from NUS comp science, he getting 6.2k when he can't even use github understand basic CICD pipeline...

How the fk... Meanwhile I worked 4 years I'm still at 7.8k

This tech market is a fking joke. Can't job hop either since companies wanna waste my time with their trash LeetCode garbage that's never used at work.

Who were the ones looking down on micron?

Eh shopee dog where you? Collect letter alr?

I got recently laid off, can I demand 2 months salary per year of service by virtue of being a highly talented and sought after SWE?

Happens everywhere la. You might as well say 2006 investment bankers earning $100K per annum as fresh grad. After 2008 nobody can find IB jobs,

Is luck one. A lot of things out of your control. Just do what u can to remain competitive.

Yea I guess so...

Just a bit salty, some of these fresh grads are CMI dumbasses yet can get 8-9k at shopee? makes 0 sense to me. wtf do they actually do at shopee? app is still so trash, website so trash.

Shopee will remain strong throughout. It is like tesla, initially have a rough start but will soar in the end. E-commerce is the future and Shopee > FAANG

LOLOLOL mad?

shopee ez money u mad lol 4 years lolol below 8k? ahahah i earn more than u and im fresh grad LMAO salty kid

boomer spotted lah, now SWE fresh grad start pay 10k/month one, which hole u living

Must be rejected by Shopee.
Sadness changed to anger, anger turned to hate and jealousy otherwise why would there be a unhealthy obession with a particular company?

10k on china venture capital money isn't anything to brag about buddy

Man no one fking cares, stop crying.

If shopee offers me 10k I'll gladly take it. I don't give a fk what u babies cry about, I farm ez money and leave this cry baby sinkie pwn sinkie land so that I don't have to breathe the same air as you retards.

Haha
 

So those who got laid off, are you taking a break or hunting for job actively?

Haha
 

My friend was offered 15k starting pay to do 3 man's job

Your mom's

LMFAO

get fking shat on kid

sailors lol, all deadweights on the sinking boat

not even a luxury cruise, just a sampan with holes mended by noobs

Shopee was my first job, knew things were bad few months ago and started to look for jobs, but many companies seem to look down or brush off my working experience in shopee. Anyone keen to hire me?

R u Singaporean?

Got laid off recently also, worked at shopee for 1 year+

got into AWS with 20% more pay, haters gonna hate, shopee is a decent name on resume. :)

Bro, what drugs you on man, can pass some to me? 😂😂😂

Fking shopee SWE loser

hey those laid off by shopee and are unemployed can work for me, I can pay you 8k salary but you must hit minimum sales target of 20k profit per month

Are you high on drugs? Cringe bro.

Just to share, colleague who are asked to go in SG are mainly from corporate functions including HRPB, Marketing and Analytics. My RO say if cash flow still does not improve, the next round will probably impact SWEs even harder and was told to work doubly hard during this difficult period.

can share what is the layoff package?

Those who sympathise with our situation, I plead with you to buy more from Shopee. Stop using Lazada, buy more products from us even if you don't have a use for it. Stop using coupons and coins. Help save our jobs

#makeshopeegreatagain

LOL. How to work doubly hard? What difference does it make?

Business model is fundamentally loss making. How good the product is, doesn't mean a thing if there's no moat.

This is why coders will forever remain coders and not senior management. No business acumen one.

Thanks
 

Yes. Can you come down for an interview?
No virtual.
We can only offer 4.2k

got laid off from shopee also like 8 months ago, i was pm, grad in 2020 so work like 1 year+

my pay isnt as high as swe, was around 6k when i join in late 2020 but climbed to 8k+ in 2021... anyway after retretch i got new job in 1 month, really not that hard i think its ok if u people first time working and dunno how to find jobs but those with 1+ year exp quite ez to find jobs

Wad ur role

Haha
 

No wonder shopee lost billions of dollars la.
Overpaid staff.

What was your achievement as PM?

The app still the same since 2019
Sea really pay pple expecting magic to happen but all just useless farks

Dear Sailors,

We have made some difficult announcements lately. I know many of you would have seen negative reports about us in the media, and you may have been shaken by news of us shutting down operations in some markets. I am writing to you today to explain what is happening, and also talk about what we need to do in the next 12-18 months.

As you know, this is a turbulent period for our industry. When countries reopened, we lost the strong tailwinds we had during the pandemic. And then, the world was hit with a series of macro-economic blows, one after another: war in Europe, huge supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, and slowing economic growth. It has been a brutal year for everyone, and the capital markets have plunged into turmoil. Some economists are predicting a global recession.

Sadly, we are not immune to these shocks. Every team has done its best to weather this storm so far. We have taken each new constraint in our stride and tried to adapt – even when doing so has required painful action. I know many of you have put in extra hours, made do with less, and tried to stay positive as we made these hard turns. Thank you for this.

We can now see that this is not a quickly passing storm: these negative conditions will likely persist into the medium term. Looking at the landscape ahead, the leadership team and I are making some decisions to help us not just survive this storm, but come out of it in as strong a position as possible. I am writing to ask for your support as we implement these plans.

Our number one objective for the next 12-18 months is achieving self-sufficiency. This means achieving positive cashflow as soon as we can. Right now, thanks to years of prudent action and hard work, we have a solid cash base that puts us in a safer position than many of our counterparts in the tech sector. However, we can easily run through this cash base if we are not careful, and with investors fleeing for 'safe haven' investments, we do not anticipate being able to raise funds in the market.

The only way for us to free ourselves from relying on external capital is to become self-sufficient, generating enough cash for all our own needs and projects. If we manage to do this, it will have huge implications for our future. We will have peace of mind, becoming less affected by the external ups and downs that are hurting us today. We will be more strong-footed, and less distracted, able to refocus on our own goals.

This is how I want Sea to emerge from this storm: in a position of certainty and independence, fully able to choose our own path.

To achieve this, we need to do two things:

1. In the immediate term, we must find every way we can to reduce our operating costs. The more cash we save each day, the more time we can buy ourselves to weather out this storm. Every bit counts.
2. Now and into the long term, we must establish a cost-sensitive culture across our organisation. In the past, we have focused on growth first, and sometimes growth at all costs. This was not a wrong approach, as global conditions were ripe with opportunities then. But now that global conditions have changed, we too must adapt. Reining in costs will be an important priority, not just for us, but across our industry. Whichever companies manage to do this the best will be the ones to emerge the strongest from this period of uncertainty.
It will not be easy for us to achieve this. But if we are all willing to pitch in, tighten our belts, and work together, I know we can make it happen.

Similar to what has been announced by many others in our industry, we will be tightening our expense policies, effective from 1 October (although I strongly encourage everyone to abide by them immediately). The full details are in the attached document, but these are the main points:

-Reimbursements for business travel will be capped at economy class flight fares, and USD 150 a night for hotel stays.
-We will be capping international business travel meal expenses to USD 30 per day.
-We will no longer reimburse internal or external meals or entertainment.
-For local car transportation, we will use the most economical service option provided by local ride booking or taxi services.

These new rules will apply to every Sailor, including myself and the entire leadership team.

In addition, the leadership team has decided that we will not take any cash compensation until the company achieves self-sufficiency.

I know that news like this can be difficult to accept. We are watching the world situation closely, and we will need to continue adapting as best as we can. I hope that I can count on your support and understanding as we try to get through this.

You will hear from me more frequently over the next few months. I will do my best to keep you updated on our situation and what we see happening in the world. If you have feedback or ideas, I welcome you to write to me. I may not be able to reply, but I will read and consider every message.

Thank you, Sailors, for all the effort you have put into building our company. Without your hard work, we would not have been able to touch millions of lives. Now, we need to again go through a transition that I know might be painful and stressful, on individuals as well as the collective. But if we can make this next big adaptation, our company will enter a new bound. Self-sufficiency is the key to our future success.

The next 12-18 months are crucial to the long-term health and longevity of our company. Let us do what we need to do to get through this together.

Forrest

://.businessinsider.com/shopee-layoffs-memo-singapore-billionaire-forrest-li-full-text-2022-9

Knn 6k still not high.

Haha I'm not gonna share much because let's be honest you already fixed on the mindset that shopee employees are all useless and trash and that's ok,

For those interested in real info, it was tiring working at shopee and most of the dev documentations were in Chinese. There's lots of meetings with China staffs as well so work late into 10pm+ was quite common.

It is what it is, it was good place to learn and adapt. Now I'm at a much better job that's a typical 8-5 job with 10% more pay and significantly less stress

Honestly if I had a chance to go back I wouldn't. Back then shopee was quite highly favored, now not anymore. It was fun while it lasted.

Fresh grad pm in shopee was 4.5k back then starting as associate pm, you started at 6k? CSB.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Shopee was never "highly favored" in the tech industry; the tech functions are seen as rejects from FAANG that do non-value adding work yet can have meetings at 10pm+. Non-tech functions are mainly segregated into the do fk all that cruises day by day and saikang warriors (this is the entire PM team). The fact that the ratio of SWEs to PMs is closer to 2:1 should be telling of how fked up the department is.

Re retrenchment, you should be aware from day 1 if your function is core i.e. revenue-generating, or experimental in nature (a fkload of "special projects", no clearly defined scope, and daily changing priority). What is happening now is management giving the middle finger to these "growth" projects, and focus on having a unit economics that actually makes sense.

If you are in tech and were affected, my advice is grind LEET codes, explain your past contributions in Shopee (+ points if can concisely touch on "how" and "why" of the systems architecture, shows you are not just a mindless robot), and memorize the typical BS (DP, tree, BFS n DFS, sorts, etc). Don't rely on the Shopee brand name, it stinks.