In a sharp reminder that Internet scale-backs aren’t just hitting the U.S.,
chinadotcom Corp. Friday laid off 48
of its staff from its portal division in China as part of a consolidation
move.
One of the most successful Net firms in China, chinadotcom said 22 people were cut in Beijing, 16 in Shanghai and 10 in
Guangzhou. Seventeen of the Hong Kong employees were from editorial, 10 from
marketing, and 21 from administrative and support functions.
The cuts were made just two days after the firm took a 7 percent stake in
online advertising network 24/7 Media
Inc. under an agreement that expanded their existing
business alliance.
In an interview with InternetNews.com Friday, Craig Celek, vice president
of investor relations at the New York office, said the cuts represented an
“attempt to achieve cost efficiencies in our China operation.”
“We’ve scaled up, going from 238 in July 1999 to 2,136 today after the
cuts,” Celek said, adding that the lay-offs represented 2 percent of the
division’s workforce. “These were non-essential portal jobs. As with any
growing business, you hire for what you think you’re going to need, but
sometimes that changes. It’s our duty to let our shareholders know.”
Celek also noted that the people were let go because they could not be
absorbed either for their location or degree of skill.
“We needed to maintain our road to profitability,” Celek said. “But we are
expanding aggressively in our Web solutions division.”
Celek was quick to note that chinadotcom was not the only firm in China
commencing lay-offs.
Indeed not.
Online media network Hongkong.com, a
unit of Chinadotcom, recently laid off about 40 out of its 200 employees
while China-focused online media network Tom.com fired 80 of its 500 employees in July.
City Telecom (Hong Kong) Ltd. cut 200 jobs in its broadband access arm and
two Internet publishing units of Next Media Ltd. also cut about 100 jobs in
July.
chinadotcom features three major divisions — Web solutions, portal
solutions and online advertising services.
In the U.S., August saw the forfeiture of Living.com’s home furniture business when
it cut 275 employees last week and closed up shop. Two weeks ago, Kozmo.com postponed its initial public
offering due to the instability of e-commerce firms in the market in
addition to laying off 30 and 40 people, or about one percent of its total
staff, from its headquarters office in New York City.
That was marginal compared to the 275 employees it whittled from its field
service dispatch trunk in early August last week. In June, the company cut
24 jobs from its headquarters office.
