Alibaba's workforce shrinks by approximately 34% in 2025, largely due to the company selling some of its offline retail businesses and focusing on artificial intelligence. The company ended its workforce in December with 128,197 employees, down from 194,320 the previous year. The bulk of the workforce reduction was revealed in the March 2025 quarter following the sale of Sun Art retail group and its stake in department store chain Intime. This comes as Alibaba aims to become a full-fledged AI company, spanning semiconductor manufacturing to computing and AI models. The firm's shares in Hong Kong were trading down 6% following the news.