Sea’s Shopee leaves Spain, to lay off teams in South-east Asia

SHOPEE, the e-commerce arm of New York-listed Sea, is pulling out of Spain and retrenching staff in South-east Asia and South America.

The exit from Spain comes less than a year after it launched in the country. It is also Shopee’s third departure from an international market. This comes shortly after the company reportedly announced global layoffs primarily affecting ShopeePay and ShopeeFood, its digital wallet and food delivery businesses.

Layoffs at Shopee will impact the ShopeeFood and ShopeePay teams in South-east Asia, the teams at Shopee Mexico, Argentina and Chile, and the cross-border team supporting Spain. It is not clear whether staff at its global headquarters Singapore will be affected. Other than Singapore, Shopee also has operations in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.