The new jobs extend the payroll growth seen in the second quarter, when Tencent added 719 jobs from the previous quarter to reach 105,506 employees by the end of June.

Until this year, Tencent’s payroll had mostly been in decline after peaking in March 2022, when it had 116,213 employees.

The company then underwent a series of cost-cutting efforts throughout 2022 and 2023, when it conducted lay-offs and exited some noncore businesses amid a weakened macro environment in China and regulatory scrutiny from Beijing.

It was eventually forced to scale back its portfolio after Beijing moved to clip the wings of Big Tech firms over what it called the “irrational expansion capital” in late 2020.