Black Shark, a maker of gaming cellphones from China, is said to have laid off hundreds of its employees since August 2022 and is unable to pay full severance pay.
Reported by Scmp, Saturday (13/1/2023), the layoffs were carried out in several stages starting in August 2022, from the number of their employees which initially had around 1000 people to only 100 people.
Not only that, Black Shark is also said to be unable to carry out its obligations to pay severance pay in full to its affected employees. The company, which is 46.4% owned by Xiaomi, is said to be experiencing financial difficulties.
The Weibo page was also flooded with comments from former Black Shark employees whose severance pay had not been paid. "Please pay severance pay. I need the money for Chinese New Year," wrote one netizen.
Even Black Shark CEO Harrison Luo's post, which simply reads "Good Morning", was flooded with negative comments from his former employee. Some of them complained that the severance pay paid by Black Shark was only 2,000 yuan (around Rp. 4.5 million).
"How can I celebrate Chinese New Year with only 2,000 yuan in compensation? What should I tell my family about this?" wrote a netizen in Luo's post.
According to a Black Shark employee, the unpaid severance pay is around 150 thousand yuan per person. And more than 100 former Black Shark employees have reported this to the authorities in Pudong, Shanghai, China.
The financial difficulties occurred after Tencent canceled its planned acquisition of Black Shark, which had been blowing since January 2022. However, Tencent later withdrew from the acquisition plan.
Initially, Tencent wanted to acquire Black Shark to strengthen the development of its virtual reality headset for metaverse content. However, the plan could not be executed because it did not receive permission from the government.