Alibaba Aims For Efficiency As Jack Ma Halts Hiring

Having taken a head count at his company, Alibaba’s Jack Ma is looking to cool down on hiring new people — as in, no more for the rest of the year.

The Executive Chairman of the Chinese eCommerce giant said in a speech to employees on April 23 that he is freezing all hiring at Alibaba Group Holding Ltd because the company has grown too quickly. The full transcript of his remarks was posted to an official Alibaba account on the social media application Laiwang yesterday (April 28), reports Bloomberg.

“This year our entire group’s headcount won’t increase by one person,” said Ma in the speech. “The purpose is simple: we need to get into formation. I think 30,000 people is efficient.”

Reuters points out that, at the close of 2014, Alibaba counted 34,081 employees in its ranks, which was a 63 percent increase over the previous year.

Hiring freeze notwithstanding, Ma expressed a commitment for the company to maintain the current number of staff as necessary, commenting, “When one [employee] leaves, we’ll bring one in.”

Also in his speech, Ma shared that Alibaba is going to consolidate its business into seven segments: eCommerce, Ant Financial, Cainiao logistics, big data and cloud computing, advertising, cross-border trade, and other Internet services.

Alibaba has experienced a stock slump as of late, having in March posted its lowest numbers since going public. The hiring freeze comes at a time when the company, as Bloomberg puts forth, is increasing spending to develop its overseas business. The report states that Ma is looking to emerging markets such as Russia, Brazil and India to boost its income.