Russian internet holding VK denies media claims of mass staff cuts, says none taking place or planned

MOSCOW. Oct 7 (Interfax) - Russia's VK internet holding has denied information about mass staff cuts published in the media and on a number of Telegram channels.

Some publications and Telegram channels, citing sources, previously said that VK is currently laying off employees, with several hundred IT workers allegedly fired by the end of September. According to their sources, up to 20% of staff may be laid off; financial difficulties and improved performance are cited as the main cause.

"This information doesn't correspond to reality. VK is not conducting and is not planning to conduct staff cuts," VK told Interfax.

The number of VK employees has not changed since the start of 2024, it said, and stands at 15,000.

VK currently has dozens of vacancies in various fields, it said.

The holding is ready to hire AI specialists from ABBYY, it said, which according to the media recently fired several hundred employees working in a number of the company's foreign offices.

"VK is ready to offer jobs to employees laid off by ABBYY. We are referring to both individual employees and established teams. We are certain that this will improve VK's expertise in ML [machine learning] development, which in turn will improve the user experience for our products and services," it said.

"The holding has dozens of vacancies related to machine learning in various business units, including VK Video, VK Music and VKontakte," it said.