E-commerce job cuts signal S-E Asia’s shift from scaling to deeper user engagement

[SINGAPORE] Recent job cuts by e-commerce players Lazada, Shopee and Amazon highlight a broader shift in South-east Asia’s maturing e-commerce sector. This comes as platforms move beyond a growth-at-all-cost mindset to focus on profitability and competitive differentiation, say analysts.

In the past two months, Shopee has cut about 8 per cent of its developer workforce; Lazada has reduced headcount by about 5 per cent across South-east Asia; while Amazon has shuttered its grocery service in Singapore, affecting less than 10 per cent of its workforce here.

Oliver Wilkinson, strategy leader at consultancy PwC Singapore, noted that the industry is moving from a phase of aggressive expansion towards prioritising monetisation and profitable growth.