Longi plans to trim as much as 30% of its workforce
last year totaled about 80,000 at its peak
employment at Longi had surged from the 4,068 people it had in 2012, when the manufacturer went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company reported 60,601 of employees at the end of 2022, and hiring continued well into 2023, according to the people
factories using older technologies have seen more job cuts than other units, some of the people said
company had about $7.4 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of 2022
previous efforts to cut costs fall short, including the cancelation of free afternoon tea, shrinking budgets for business trips and being told to only print in black-and-white unless approved to do otherwise by supervisors
the financial pressures sent its net income plunging 44% to 2.52 billion yuan ($350 million) in the third quarter of 2023
Company President Li Zhenguo said in October that the firm “made a mistake” in not being aggressive enough in price competition with peers and was likely to miss its annual shipment target
company’s shares have fallen about 70% from their peak in 2021