Can layoffs really save the Chinese Internet?

Marx once said: "Everything that people strive to fight are related to their interests."

In interest, the Chinese Internet giants have experienced four rounds of layoffs in the next year. It is foreseeable that the wave of layoffs from 2021-2022 will never be the last time.

From the end of the elimination, optimizing personnel, sending talents to the society, and even the recent "congratulations to graduation". It can also be foreseeable that the new statement about layoffs will also constantly dispromes the nerves of public opinion.

For enterprises, the pursuit of profit is justified. In order to achieve profits, relying on the means of relying on layoffs and reducing costs, the Chinese Internet giants are on forks.

History inertia

The inertia of history allows Chinese Internet companies to "lay off" the most direct way to reduce costs.

In 2000, the global Internet bubble ruptured, and the Nasdaq listed company exceeded 500 bankruptcy. A large number of Internet companies were cut in market value. A large number of Chinese stock companies headed by Web 1.0 portal websites were layoffs.

In 2008, it was impacted by the global financial crisis, and Chinese Internet companies' videos, blogs, games, media and other business lines broke out for layoffs, and giants led by the Web 2.0 era continued the trend.

By the third Internet layoffs -2018 global technology companies' layoffs strikes, and Chinese Internet manufacturers "respond to recruitment." At that time, at least 17 companies in 2018 were abolished and reduced the scale of recruitment. There are at least 8 Internet companies.

Looking back at the past, the three tide tide are almost affected by the macroeconomic cycle, and the answers handed in the Internet companies in China have survived the crisis with the most direct cost reduction way of layoffs.

However, there is a "paradox" phenomenon: while Chinese Internet companies are rapidly laying off their layoffs, they are also recruiting a lot. Several head companies such as Tencent, Ali, JD.com, and subsequent bytes of the Internet are new, and the size of personnel is increasing rapidly.

However, with the latest round of interconnection layoffs from 2021 to 2022, the situation was completely reversed, and the core issue was finally exposed.

Why did the layoff fail?

Factors such as the new crown epidemic, rigorous scientific and technological supervision of global scope, and major companies' diseases are objective reasons for the fourth wave of layoffs in China's Internet.

But the fundamental problem is that it is difficult for Chinese Internet giants to deal with the problem of reducing costs and efficiency. In fact, the reduction of costs is a means of improving the efficiency of enterprises, but it is never the purpose.

In 2010, IBM cut 110,000 people at the same time within three years. Under the transformation of fierce business, this company is hailed as an example of elephant dancing and swinging. American manufacturing company Berry Wimeller was impacted by the financial crisis in 2008, and the order loss was serious, but the boss said: I don't believe that people can solve the problem, and I think people's hearts are valuable. Later, the company opened a full -time vacation plan, and finally passed the difficulties.

Earlier 2001, Amazon's Bosos dominated 15%of the layoffs, and after successfully spent the layoff crisis, Amazon, who has been losing money for many years, has achieved profitability in recent years, and its market value has already exceeded trillion US dollars.

However, the fourth tide of China's Internet layoffs is closer to a pure "cost reduction". Although such a "cost reduction" method can reduce corporate expenses in the short term and achieve profit increase. However, such layoffs can no longer solve the problem of people's effectiveness.

In fact, within the two decades after the millennium, the size of Chinese Internet companies is rapidly increasing. Compared with American Internet companies, Microsoft and Apple have used the size of nearly 40 years to increase from 10,000 to 100,000, but the speed of Chinese companies has almost doubled: Ali has used 19 years and JD.com has used it for 17 years. At this stage, Tencent, with the highest market value of China's Internet companies, has exceeded 100,000 in the third quarter of 2021.

However, Tencent is only one -fifth of the market value of Apple.

The rapid expansion of personnel and the rapid turn of personnel efficiency are becoming a core issue that Chinese Internet companies cannot rely on "layoffs". Data show that the Ali people took about 490,000 US dollars in 2018. In the same period of 2018, Apple's per capita income exceeded 2 million US dollars -in the same year, the S & P 500 technology companies reached an average of $ 700,000.

It can be said that a large number of recruitment under the leadership of "barbaric growth" and the scale effect of the scale is becoming a giant thunder concentrated outbreak in the fourth wave of layoffs in China's Internet. What is stingy is that this time the wave is more extensive and fierce: according to relevant reports, since last year, the proportion of iQiyi layoffs was as high as 12%, the fast -handed layoffs were exposed by 30%, and the layoffs of the e -sports department B The overall layoffs of the street were 30%, and there were nearly 70%of the two rounds of layoffs, let alone the almost collective destruction of K12.

In order to eat a stage of dividend, the scale that had never been seen before recruited people, and when the business end was impacted and imprisoned, unprecedented "layoffs". As the so -called: add water to the noodles, and the water is added to the noodles -it can be said that the logic of China's Internet recruitment and layoffs is the end of the era. The harm exists directly.

An intuitive example of foreign countries is: in 2008, the net profit of Nokia in the middle of the day increased by 67%. But in the following years, the global opponent rose rapidly, and Nokia's profits fell rapidly. Nokia, which internal and external troubles, closed a large number of factories and dismissed thousands of employees. The move directly led to tens of thousands of demonstrations, leading to the investigation of local German governments, as well as the discussion of unions, media and even the entire public opinion. In the end, Nokia suffered a lot of goodwill in order to lay off the goodwill, with a revenue of over 700 million euros and the east of profit of 100 million euros. For employees who are constantly "graduating", the cost of its life is not simple "N+1" can be compensated by equivalent. Previously, Professor Wayne Cascio at the University of Colorado had pointed out that corporate layoffs did not just lose a job for employees. In its continuous follow -up survey, only 41% of the samples were able to find jobs with similar treatment after one year, 26% of the treatment was lower than the original, and the remaining people could not find a job.

A research report from Columbia University from Columbia pointed out that in 1982, employees who were laid off were 20% of their wages after 20 years. Even researchers at the State University of New York pointed out that the health issues were 83%higher than their colleagues left, and the violence tendency was 6 times higher.

Back to the origin of consumption

Facts have proven countless times that layoffs cannot solve human results and cannot solve the efficiency of enterprises.

Increasing efficiency is an eternal problem. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that as of the first quarter of this year, the operating costs of Internet companies above designated size increased by 7%year -on -year, the growth rate increased by 2.6 percentage points compared with the first quarter, and the total profit was 32.14 billion yuan, a year -on -year decrease of 25.4%. Essence Among them, the business revenue of platform corporate business, which provides life services, decreased by 20.2%year -on -year.

This also means that the development momentum of Internet platform companies, which has led the development of Chinese companies, has begun to slow, and almost the entire industry has fallen into a long "growth anxiety". As a result, it is imminent to seek a vast world to connect with the expansion of the business.

As a result, with the fierce community purchase of community groups in 2020, it was gradually "annihilating" as the ruler. Public opinion was angry with the vulgar development methods of "staring at the common people of the people" in the large manufacturers.

A extensive voice is: By continuously burning money to expand the business scale, the market is disorderly competition -Chinese Internet giants are the "cause" of the previous blind and high -speed expansion, swallowing the "fruit" of today's bad reviews. Essence

Another more sharp criticism pointed out: Chinese Internet companies do not do "traffic business", without technical content -for this reason, China's "consumer Internet company" and "hard technology companies" have been invisible — - If a huge Internet platform serves users of more than millions of levels, it will not be able to obtain the "hard technology" achievement brought about by basic research and development.

Because of this, many people have begun to sing the future of the Chinese Internet, especially the major giants with consumer Internet.

However, this debate that lasted for nearly two years is often only hot, but lack of focus. It must be pointed out that abandonment of "barbaric growth" is extremely correct, but must not be scrapped because of choking. Because of this, reviewing the outbreak of this contradiction may also be a real break point.

In fact, it is very different from people's impression that most of the most successful technology companies in the United States rely on consumption -led. In November 2017, a Bloomberg article called Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon as the "Five Giants" and dominated the US economy. Nowadays, the market value of four companies except Facebook has exceeded the trillion dollars — and their total market value accounts for more than 40%of the total market value of the US stock market.

Except for Microsoft's business based on the B -end, the other four giants' business is on the consumer side. And now to C business is their main source of income.

For example, Apple's business is mainly "consumer electronics" and user value -added services. And these, in a broad sense they are consumer business. Facebook, the leading Facebook of Zuckerberg, applies to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other apps are all consumer applications. Google's main business is divided into Google services, Google Cloud and "other attempts". In addition, 87%of Amazon's revenue comes from consumer Internet business such as e -commerce platforms and 13%from AWS cloud services.

Among them, Microsoft, as Microsoft, is the only company among the five giants that use corporate customers as the main source of income, but Microsoft's consumer business still contributes 34%of revenue and 29%of its operating profit in the first quarter of 2022. Not to mention that Microsoft has been determined to greatly enhance the proportion of consumer business from the beginning of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard: Looking back at history, Microsoft has always been a company that does not give up consumer business.

For the "hard technology" of Chinese Internet companies, in terms of such science and technology giants in the United States, they often start with demand, rather than test -oriented -this is completely different from the concepts in people's impressions, and it is completely different. Essence

From this point of view, the key areas that Chinese Internet companies can really increase efficiency may be the consumer Internet. Just as Engels's "Speaking in front of Marx Tomb" states: "People must first eat, drink, live, wear, and then engage in politics, science, art, religion, etc. Basic. Avoid those "synthesis fallaces"

From web1.0 to the current web3.0, from VR to today's Yuan universe: how to maximize the high speed of benefits, how to find an emerging market to take over the Internet plate, and become the key to whether Chinese Internet giants can be further Essence

Focusing on the controversy of the Chinese Internet giants on cost reduction and efficiency, the criticisms of the giants' "layoffs" and low effects, and the exploration of new businesses and other discussions. "Synthetic fallacy": That is, all criticism and checks and balances are often correct, but the concentrated outbreak at the same time, the result may be unsatisfactory.

Among them, the most important leading factor is time and patience.

Since October 2020, the supervision of the Internet industry has become stricter. On March 16 this year, the Financial Committee of the State Council held a special meeting, which set the support of the economic development of the platform, strengthened regulatory supervision, and promoted the stable and healthy development of the platform's economy.

The change of wind direction is also the advent of opportunities -this year, Han Wenxiu, deputy director of China Finance Office, has written in "Looking". In all aspects, it is necessary to actively introduce policies that are conducive to economic stability and carefully introduce a policy of shrinking effects. Economic and social development is a complex system associated with each other. It is necessary to prevent synthetic fallacy and avoid local reasonable policies to cause negative effects.

Perhaps everything is just like the special and irreplaceable status of the Internet industry. According to data released by the China Internet Information Center, as early as 2014, the Chinese Internet economy accounted for 7%of GDP.

This year's Boao Conference on Hainan, a well -known scholar has admitted that since the 21st century, the Chinese Internet industry has been the few industries that lead the world at the same time as the United States. two.

Famous economist Li Yining has made a vivid metaphor for more than ten years: the economy is like cars, the initiative of braking is in the country, and the initiative to start is the people. The Chinese economy is easy to start with brakes.

At this time, re -examine the importance and value of the Internet industry, re -find the direction of the development of this industry, and regain confidence and mind: Avoid self -destroying the Great Wall, it has become a top priority.

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