announced
The New Oriental Building in Zhongguancun, Haidian District, Beijing, August 10, 2021
Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
- New Oriental Education laid off 60,000 people last year and saw its income plummet, its founder said.
- This came after the company ended all its online and in-person K-9 tutoring services.
- He said it had been affected by the pandemic and China’s crackdown on tutoring companies.
One of China’s biggest providers of private educational services laid off 60,000 people last year, its founder said, following a crackdown on private tutoring.
Yu Minhong, the founder and chairman of New Oriental Education, which provides after-school tutoring and sells books, said in a WeChat post on Saturday that the company’s market value had dropped by 90% and its operating income by 80% during 2021, Bloomberg reported.
It comes after China’s ruling Communist Party announced a “Double Reduction” policy in July 2021, which included a ban on for-profit tutoring of school subjects for children, and almost instantly wiped out a $100 billion industry.
The company ended all its online and in-person, kindergarten-to-grade-9 tutoring services, Yu was reported to have said in the post. Policy, the pandemic, and international relations had affected New Oriental’s operations, he said.
Tuition refunds, employee severence packages, and the cancellations of teaching site leases cost the company close to 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion), he said.
New Oriental didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
In the year to May 31, 2021, New Oriental posted operating income of $117.2 million compared to $399.0 million the year before, though the drop in net income wasn’t as dramatic.
As of May 31, 2021, the company had 88,126 full-time employees and 17,086 contract teachers and staff, it said in its 2021 annual report. New Oriental now has around 50,000 staff, Yu said in a separate post Monday, per Bloomberg.
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