Prosus, the majority shareholder of eMAG and OLX, and parent company Naspers plan to cut their workforce by 30%, joining a number of tech companies that have announced layoffs.
The company, one of Europe’s largest e-commerce entities by asset value, will initiate staff cuts, including at offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam and South Africa, CEO Bob van Dijk has announced. The job cuts will take place over a 12-month period and will affect approximately 15 locations.
The CEO did not announce exactly how many people will lose their jobs. Prosus had 30,000 employees globally at the end of March, according to a report, but those roles are split between numerous businesses and areas in which the group invests and operates, including food delivery and payments.
The tech sector has announced 97,171 job losses in 2022, up 649 percent from the previous year, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Prosus will also try to cut costs at the more than 80 companies it has invested in, but the efforts will have different timelines and dimensions, according to Van Dijk.
The company has already closed some offices and cut back on others, the CEO said. The measures should help Prosus become profitable by the first half of 2025.
Prosus, spun off from Naspers, listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange in 2019 at a valuation of 125 billion euros. Naspers retained a 73% stake in this new company, to which it transferred a roughly 29% stake in Chinese giant Tencent, a stake of around 79% in eMAG, as well as stakes in other platforms including OLX and Udemy.
