Daraz, Pakistan’s largest e-commerce platform, will be reducing its workforce by 11 per cent to prepare for the ‘current market reality’, Alibaba Group CEO Bjarke Mikkelsen has said.
The official made the announcement via a letter to the employees, shared on the company website.
Mikkelsen explained that a difficult market environment, supply chain disruptions, inflation, increasing taxes, and the removal of the state’s subsidies were the reasons behind the cut.
In the letter, the CEO highlighted that Daraz was able to enhance the active shoppers from three million in 2018 to over 15m at present.
This, he maintained, was done with “an average order growth of almost 100pc until last year”.
Talking to Reuters, Managing Director Daraz Pakistan, Ehsan Saya termed Pakistan the biggest market and said that the country has the most number of employees employed across platform’s markets.
“Almost one-third of the staff in Pakistan is from regional teams which work with teams in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Singapore, and China,” he added.
He confirmed that the the workforce slashing across the group will also mean an 11pc cut in Pakistan.
In 2021, Daraz said it had access to 500m customers and a team of 10,000 employees. The platform has invested $100m in Pakistan and Bangladesh during the past two years.
The workforce cut comes at a time when Pakistan continues to battle a severe economic crisis. Former finance minister Miftah Ismail has predicted that the economic conditions will remain tight even if the government succeeds to avail the IMF bailout programme.
Daraz was founded in 2012 in Pakistan and acquired by the Chinese giant in 2018, and has an estimated 100,000 SMEs in Pakistan on its platform.
The workforce cut comes at a time when Pakistan continues to battle a severe economic crisis. Former finance minister Miftah Ismail has predicted that the economic conditions will remain tight even if the government succeeds to avail the IMF bailout programme.
The IMF team has been in Islamabad since January 31 for talks with the government. Following the technical-level negotiations between Pakistan and the IMF’s delegation, the two sides will start the policy-level negotiations today.
Pakistan finds itself in a tight spot, as it is desperate to revive the IMF programme, yet the government is reluctant to pass on the economic burden of implementing the Fund’s conditionalities to the masses.
Though some in the corridors of power might still believe that they can perform a balancing act, the IMF is in no mood to concede to Pakistan’s demands.
