Huawei fires outsourced workers in massive recruitment fraud scheme
BEIJING, CHINA — Huawei has responded forcefully against a widespread recruitment fraud scheme including outsourced workers and full-time staff.
The Chinese internet giant reportedly issued an extensive internal report on its employee platform “Xinsheng Community,” revealing misconduct in its hiring policies leading to large dismissals on March 10.
Revealing extensive corruption network
According to reports by The Economic Observer and Sina Finance, 72 Huawei staff members and 19 outsourced workers engaged in a range of fraudulent activities, including setting up proxy tests, forwarding evaluation questions to candidates, and selling corporate information assets for personal benefit.
The program was especially common at the company’s Chengdu branch, where the data storage division suffered the most, with claims implying that 62 of around 100 staff members in that section were subjected to official reprimands, demotion, or dismissal.
Whistleblowers claim that the allegedly fraudulent recruitment network included internal staff, Huawei HR officials, IT bloggers, and external training companies. Some candidates allegedly paid a “referral fee” of CNY 20,000 (about US$2,763) to land outsourced jobs; some employees were apparently compelled to pay continuous monthly “kickbacks” of CNY 2,000 (about US$276).
Severe consequences for employees, outsourced workers
Based on the degree of violations, Huawei has applied a tiered disciplinary system. Thirteen employees engaged in test fraud, leaking private materials, and selling firm data were sacked and told to surrender back their illegal profits. Ten more staff members were let go for severe misbehavior; thirteen more were demoted to three levels.
The corporation also penalized managers who neglected their duties; 26 supervisors were demoted by six levels and had their promotions and pay changes suspended for six to twelve months.
The internal notice said these violations “may also have an adverse impact on the company’s business operations.” Every involved outsourced worker was let go and permanently barred from working for Huawei.
Impact on outsourced hiring
Particularly for technical roles in software development, big data analytics, and algorithm engineering, the scandal has exposed weaknesses in Huawei’s outsourced recruiting strategy. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Huawei underlined the requirement for outsourced workers in its labor strategy and the need for more strict recruitment control.
Huawei has yet to release an official statement, but internal sources of DIGITIMES Asia advised employees to disregard unverified claims.
This crackdown underscores Huawei’s rising emphasis on internal compliance and the difficulties of labor control in big technological enterprises running with sophisticated employment patterns.
