China’s Tech Workforce Faces Mass AI-Driven Layoffs: Report
A report says China’s major internet firms have cut more than 1.3 lakh jobs in 18 months as AI coding tools reshape work, intensifying pressure beyond the old 996 culture.
“China’s Tech Workforce Faces Mass AI-Driven Layoffs: Report”
Read more onwww.entrepreneuroutreach.com/s/2e9c0a
8 Aug 2026
https://www.entrepreneuroutreach.com/s/2e9c0a
Copied
China’s Tech Workforce Faces Mass AI-Driven Layoffs: Report
New Delhi: China’s well-known “996” work culture—shifts from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week—has given way to a harsher reality as artificial intelligence tools increasingly replace programmers, according to a new report.
The Sri Lanka-based Daily Mirror said layoffs in China’s tech sector have surged, with the country’s five major internet giants cutting more than 1.3 lakh employees over the past 18 months.
Jobs at companies such as Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance were long seen as a path to prosperity, even though the health costs were severe. Programmers worked late nights, faced high stress and, in some cases, died young. The report cited the case of a programmer who collapsed at the age of 32 after years of gruelling hours, sparking online outrage. It described a climate of constant anxiety, with workers fearing they would fall behind if they did not study technical papers even on weekends, and lives marked by limited social interaction.
AI coding tools, the report said, now allow one engineer to direct large numbers of systems and complete in a week projects that once took a month. It quoted the claim that “one AI agent can replace the work of 100 people” and suggested that vast office buildings could stand nearly empty in the near future. In the same framing, a company with 50 programmers was described as matching the productivity of 5,000 because each programmer could direct hundreds of AI systems to write code daily.
A 35-year-old laid off by ByteDance was cited as saying that even if rehired, the threat of another layoff would remain. Alibaba was said to have reduced 30–40 per cent of its workforce, while Baidu and JD.com had laid off thousands of employees.
Once-prestigious roles now appear insecure, with salaries declining even for graduates of elite universities, the report said. The average age at some tech giants is now 27.5, leaving older workers with family responsibilities increasingly excluded. Programmers who had earned high annual incomes and built life plans around stable pay have found themselves constrained by mortgages and family obligations, with many middle-class households at risk of sliding back toward financial hardship.
The report links the latest wave of job cuts to the rapid adoption of AI in software development, arguing that the pressure on China’s tech workforce has moved beyond long hours to the question of whether many programming roles will remain at all.
