Yahoo fires hundreds as it abandons China, recruiters in a feeding frenzy

Yahoo is reportedly laying off 200 to 300 employees in China, shutting down its Beijing research center and pulling out what few operations it has left in the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Beijing office was Yahoo’s only physical presence in the country, consisting mainly of engineers working on research and development. They make up about 2 percent of Yahoo’s global staff. A string of layoffs since October have led to as many as 900 people searching for new employment, mostly countries outside the US like Bangladesh, India, and Canada.

A photo circulating on Chinese social media reportedly shows a slide show presentation at Yahoo’s office in Beijing, explaining to the employees the forthcoming agenda as they prepare to leave their jobs. It seems some employees would have the option of relocating to the US, while others receive a severance package equal to four months base salary plus the number of years employed multiplied by their average monthly income.

Within hours of the announcement recruiters and HR departments at other tech companies were, as one source told Tech in Asia, "feeding on the leftover talent." The following screenshot is of a WeChat group of 340 headhunters and HR managers from a wide array of both large and small internet companies. The name of the group, in English, is "Yahoo recruitment group."

WSJ reports the layoffs were driven by financial motives, and not related to censorship or government pressure.

Yahoo’s China web domain now redirects to its Singapore site.

Yahoo is a major shareholder in Alibaba, China’s biggest ecommerce company that broke the world record for the biggest initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange last year. Yahoo recently announced plans to spin off its 15 percent stake in Alibaba into a separate business entity. Yahoo is valued at about US$45 billion, with Alibaba making up US$40 billion of that.