Daraz Bangladesh to lay off 50 full-timers 

Daraz Bangladesh, the leading e-commerce platform in the country, has decided to lay off 50 of their full-time employees as part of the job-cut plan of its mother organisation Daraz Group.

Daraz Group, a subsidiary of Chinese behemoth Alibaba, plans to reduce its workforce by 11 per cent in order to cope with the ‘current market reality’.

“Daraz Bangladesh has more than 6,000 staffers, including 1,000 full-timers, and 50 of the full-timers have received termination letters,” said a top official of Daraz Bangladesh.

The Daraz official, seeking anonymity, said Daraz Bangladesh had Business to Business wing (B2B) as a marketplace daraz decided to close down the e-commerce wing which mainly triggered the ‘job for cut adjustment’.

“Less than 1 per cent of our staff may be redundant. It is not like job cuts based on the performance or anything while the mother company has planned to reduce employees by 11 per cent,” he also cited.

Alibaba Group subsidiary, Daraz Group is reducing its workforce by 11 per cent to prepare for the ‘current market reality’, the group’s CEO Bjarke Mikkelsen said in a letter to employees which was shared on the company website.

Mikkelsen cited a difficult market environment, with a war in Europe, huge supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, increasing taxes, and removal of essential government subsidies in its markets.

“For the last 5 years, we have been following our long-term business plan and increased our active shoppers from 3 million in 2018 to more than 15 million today, with average order growth of almost 100 per cent until last year.”

“However, in the last 12 months, the market environment turned and became extremely difficult with a war in Europe, huge supply chain disruptions, soaring inflation, increasing taxes, and removal of essential government subsidies in our markets.”

The Daraz CEO pointed out that the progress wasn’t enough and the company needed to do more to adjust to the lower growth outlook in the next couple of years.

“In order to weather the storm, we need to collectively do everything we can to improve profitability and save costs. This includes refocusing on the core business, simplifying the organisation, and doing more with less in all departments.”

The employees from other departments, including marketing, are also being laid off.

Daraz Group operates its business in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Daraz reportedly said in 2021 it had access to 500 million customers, with a team of 10,000 employees. It has invested $100 million in Pakistan and Bangladesh over the last two years.