Major Chinese solar manufacturer LONGi is reportedly cutting about 30% of its workforce as it adapts to growing overcapacity in the solar sector.
According to a report from Bloomberg, LONGi employed about 80,000 staffers last year at its peak, which means that the reported redundancy could involve as many as 24,000 employees. As of 30 April 2023, LONGi had 60,601 employees, according to information on LONGi’s website.
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Bloomberg added that the layoffs started last November, with mostly management trainees and factory workers losing their positions, and LONGi insisted that just 5% of its workers could stand to lose their jobs.
Solar Media’s head of research Finlay Colville examined the solar PV manufacturing sector in an article published on PV Tech, stating that the industry will go into a downturn in 2024. Colville noted that the global solar sector could be facing an oversupply of modules as high as 30-40%, which has made module manufacturing less financially lucrative in the last year.
LONGi has sought to get out ahead of this downturn, and in early March, called on the Chinese government to introduce new bidding rules to crack down on low prices and ensure the sustainable development of the renewables industry in China.
The company’s chairman Zhong Baoshen said some solar PV manufacturers offered a price much lower than the cost of solar PV components in bids. He described the phenomenon of bidding prices lower than the costs of solar PV components as “unsustainable”.
Ironically, this phenomenon mirrors one seen in Europe for much of last year, at which point blame was placed on Chinese manufacturers. In January, Johan Lindahl, the secretary-general of the European Council of Solar Manufacturers, told PV Tech Premium that low-cost Chinese modules were flooding the European solar sector, making it all but impossible for European manufacturers to generate a profit. This oversupply seems to have caught up to LONGi, which is also starting to see its margins shrink.
PV Tech has approached LONGi for comment on this story.