Chinese Internet Giants Like ByteDance and Alibaba Launch Part-Time Job Sites to Reduce Costs

Since the beginning of the year, many Chinese internet giants such as ByteDance, Meituan and JD.com have launched new part-time job platforms in an attempt to further reduce their operating costs. Meanwhile, Alibaba has launched a part-time job platform called “Daraz Flex” overseas, according to a report by Tech Planet on October 31.

Internet companies have always engaged in such crowdsourcing and part-time businesses. Major companies can outsource marginal or simple businesses at lower-cost labor prices, which can enable people with free time to make money, and also help these companies to focus energy and resources on key businesses.

SEE ALSO: Micro-Lenders Under JD.com, ByteDance, Meituan and Others Accelerate ABS Issuance

Given the above-mentioned companies, as well as Tencent, Baidu and Pinduoduo, Chinese internet giants generally have their own part-time crowdsourcing platforms. The main types of work of these firms are labeling, translation, data collection, sharing, auditing, and other marginal business.

For example, on ByteDance’s part-time job platform “Zhujie,” the tasks include subtitle translation, dialect dubbing, body data collection, and more. The tasks are assigned around the main business of ByteDance. Claiming each task requires a quote from guild-like associations, so individual users cannot directly sign up for part-time jobs. At present, more than 220,000 people earn money through Zhujie, including freelancers, housewives, students, and employees. The monthly income ranges from several hundred to thousands of yuan.

Moreover, Tech Planet learned that before the upcoming Double 11 Shopping Festival, a Chinese e-commerce giant is posting a large number of part-time jobs on major recruitment platforms to share the work intensity and quickly complete some indispensable tasks. For example, part-time couriers and furniture deliverymen can fill the short-term needs of the platform in terms of physical strength and skills during the shopping festival.

One HR worker at a leading Chinese internet company said that part-time jobs are indeed becoming an important part of the employment of big factories. There are many people who can finish these jobs, especially some freelancers also have skills that meet their part-time job requirements. On the other hand, part-time crowdsourcing has lower labor costs and risks than official employees. In today’s economic environment, part-time crowdsourcing is becoming a new choice for big companies.

According to Chinese media outlet Guangming, traditional odd jobs are becoming popular for internet platforms. According to a report on the country’s sharing economy development (2021) released by China’s State Information Center, there are nearly 700,000 freelancers active on domestic platforms, and more than 300 types of flexible jobs can be found in more than 50 cities across the country. In addition, policies are also supporting the development of the part-time industry.