According to the Q4 2023 Financial Statements of Mobile World Investment Corporation (stock code: MWG), the company had 65,414 employees as of December 31, 2023. This number decreased by nearly 8,600 people compared to the beginning of the year and more than 14,800 people compared to the peak at the end of Q3 2022.
The reduction in workforce in 2023 marked the first time in the past 10 years that Mobile World Cut its workforce. This has helped MWG to reduce more than VND 1,000 billion in employee costs in the past year.
In the past year, MWG not only closed Bach Hoa Xanh stores but also closed ineffective The Gioi Di Dong stores. In Q4 2023, the management of The Gioi Di Dong announced that they had closed about 200 stores that did not generate significant revenue and profit as before.
“What is ineffective, we cut it! When we cut, it means cutting the losses, the parasites. Imagine a family with 10 children, and 2 children are parasites affecting the family’s income, then we cut those 2 children. The remaining 8 children are only in positions to make money. That is the image everywhere, restructuring everywhere, and the spirit is that next year we will only keep what is effective,” Nguyen Duc Tai, the Chairman of The Gioi Di Dong, shared in a shareholders’ meeting in October.
In contrast to what MWG is doing, one of its rivals in the “Price War,” FPT Retail (stock code: FRT), recorded a record number of employees. Specifically, at the end of 2023, the company had a total of 17,799 employees, an increase of more than 2,300 people compared to the beginning of the year.
The growth in the number of FPT Retail employees mainly came from the increase in personnel at the Long Chau pharmacy chain. Specifically, as of December 31, 2023, Long Chau had a total of 13,100 employees, an increase of 3,300 people compared to the beginning of the year and 13 times higher than at the end of 2019. On the contrary, the number of employees at FPT Shop – FPT Retail’s ICT retail chain – decreased by 1,600 people.
These figures reflect the reality of what has happened between the two chains of FPT Retail in the past year. While FPT Shop closed 31 stores in 2023, Long Chau opened 560 new stores, bringing the total number of pharmacies nationwide to 1,497.
2023 was also the first year that Long Chau’s revenue surpassed FPT Shop and became a “burden-sharing” factor for FPT Retail.
