Chinese food delivery firm Meituan plans to hire 10,000 workers as U.S. tech giants ax jobs

Chinese nutrient transportation steadfast Meituan plans to prosecute 10,000 workers successful the archetypal 4th of the year, the institution said Wednesday, sending shares much than 6% lower.

Meituan is hiring crossed a fig of antithetic areas of the concern including exertion improvement and lawsuit services crossed dozens of cities including Beijing and Shanghai. The institution said that it is hiring arsenic the "consumption betterment trend" successful China accelerates.

Last year, China saw a large outbreak of Covid-19 crossed the country, with lockdowns successful Shanghai. Beijing continued to forge up with its "zero-Covid" argumentation that uses strict measures specified arsenic wide investigating and lockdowns to effort to eradicate the dispersed of the virus. That argumentation has hurt the Chinese economy. China ended its zero-Covid policy astatine the extremity of past year, spurring hopes of a rebound successful the Chinese system which could besides assistance its embattled exertion firms.

Meituan's hiring spree is successful opposition to Silicon Valley exertion giants from Microsoft to Alphabet that person laid disconnected thousands of workers.

But to immoderate extent, China's exertion rhythm has travel earlier than successful the U.S. Chinese tech firms began to look headwinds successful 2021 arsenic Beijing enacted pugnacious regularisation successful areas from antitrust to information protection. That year, Meituan was deed with a $500 cardinal antitrust fine.

In 2022, Chinese exertion giants posted immoderate of their slowest maturation successful history arsenic the system faltered and companies from Alibaba to Tencent reduced headcount. Meituan reportedly laid disconnected workers excessively past year.

Meituan's hiring spree could beryllium the archetypal signs that China's exertion assemblage is looking astatine enlargement erstwhile more. Meituan has been a beneficiary of lockdowns successful China arsenic radical turned to online nutrient delivery. Its gross jumped much than 28% year-on-year successful the September 4th portion the company, which had been losing money, swung to profit.

The banal marketplace did not similar the company's hiring announcement, which comes astatine a clip erstwhile sentiment toward the Chinese tech assemblage remains fragile. Meituan shares were down 6% connected Wednesday.

But the institution is facing much aggravated contention astatine location from its long-time rival Ele.me, which is owned by Alibaba, but besides caller players including ByteDance's abbreviated video level Douyin, which has been trialing a nutrient transportation service since December and is considering expansion.