--- title: "CapitaLand Cuts 10 Percent of Its China Workforce as…" canonical: "https://www.metaintro.com/blog/capitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026" language: "en" author: "drashtigarach" published: "2026-06-01T12:32:20.000Z" modified: "2026-10-02T19:32:09.186Z" --- [Back to Blog](/blog) [Layoffs](/blog/tag/layoffs)[Jobs](/blog/tag/jobs)[Economy](/blog/tag/economy)[Labor Market](/blog/tag/labor-market)[News](/blog/tag/news)[Information](/blog/tag/information) # CapitaLand Cuts 10 Percent of Its China Workforce as the Downturn Deepens CapitaLand cut about 10 percent of its China staff in 2025 as the property downturn deepened. What it signals for real estate and finance job seekers. [![Drashti Garach](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:40:40/q:72/plain/images/5719d740-e510-42bc-8017-e040d145f35f_1766029465094.png)Drashti Garach @DrashtiGarach](/blog/author/drashtigarach) [June 1, 2026](/blog/archive/2026/06)Updated October 2, 202611 min read ![CapitaLand Cuts 10 Percent of Its China Workforce as the Downturn Deepens](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:1200:675/q:78/plain/images/kai.cHtYP73Y.png) [https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=CapitaLand%20Cuts%2010%20Percent%20of%20Its%20China%20Workforce%20as%20the%20Downturn%20Deepens&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026](https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=CapitaLand%20Cuts%2010%20Percent%20of%20Its%20China%20Workforce%20as%20the%20Downturn%20Deepens&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026)[http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026)[https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026&title=CapitaLand%20Cuts%2010%20Percent%20of%20Its%20China%20Workforce%20as%20the%20Downturn%20Deepens](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026&title=CapitaLand%20Cuts%2010%20Percent%20of%20Its%20China%20Workforce%20as%20the%20Downturn%20Deepens)[mailto:?subject=CapitaLand%20Cuts%2010%20Percent%20of%20Its%20China%20Workforce%20as%20the%20Downturn%20Deepens&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026](mailto:?subject=CapitaLand%20Cuts%2010%20Percent%20of%20Its%20China%20Workforce%20as%20the%20Downturn%20Deepens&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fcapitaland-china-workforce-cut-10-percent-downturn-2026) CapitaLand Investment cut about 10 percent of its workforce in China during 2025, roughly 365 positions, as the prolonged property downturn in Asia's biggest economy continued to weigh on the Singapore-listed asset manager. The reduction was disclosed in the company's global sustainability report and first reported by [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-31/singapore-s-capitaland-sheds-10-of-china-staff-amid-downturn), which noted the firm's total headcount fell to 9,542 from 10,158 a year earlier. At [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com), we track how moves like this reshape the job market so you can see where opportunity is heading next. The cut is one of the clearest signs yet that China's real estate slump is forcing global landlords to shrink their on-the-ground teams. ## Why Did CapitaLand Reduce Its China Workforce? The headcount reduction is a direct consequence of a property market that keeps deteriorating rather than stabilizing. [CapitaLand Investment](https://www.capitaland.com/en/about-capitaland/newsroom/news-releases/international/2026/february/capitaland-investment-posts-improved-fy-2025-operating-patmi-of-.html), one of Asia's largest real estate investment managers, has spent years building exposure to Chinese offices, retail malls, and business parks. As demand for those assets weakened, the company recorded S$439 million in non-cash revaluation losses on its China portfolio in its FY2025 results, reflecting what management described as continued market softness across the country. Those write-downs hit the bottom line hard. Total profit after tax and minority interests fell to S$145 million from S$479 million the prior year, even as operating profit edged up 6 percent to S$539 million. The gap between a healthy operating business and a battered headline number is the China problem in a single line. When the value of the assets a team manages keeps falling, the staffing that supports those assets tends to shrink with it, and the China cuts are the human side of that math. It helps to understand how a manager like this is built. CapitaLand earns fees for sourcing, leasing, and operating buildings, so the size of its local team is closely tied to how many active assets it holds in a market and how much new business it expects to win there. As deals dry up and values fall, the workload that justified a large China bench shrinks, and the company can run the remaining portfolio with fewer people. The reduction was framed as part of a wider effort to manage China exposure rather than a sudden retreat, but for the people in those roles the effect is the same. It is also a reminder that headcount in real estate tracks deal flow and asset values, not just the headline health of the parent company. ## How Deep Is China's Property Downturn? The downturn that pushed CapitaLand to trim staff is broad and still worsening. China's top 100 developers reported combined contracted sales of about 165.5 billion yuan in January 2026, a drop of 27 percent from a year earlier, according to data cited by [IndexBox](https://www.indexbox.io/blog/chinas-property-downturn-deepens-in-2026-with-accelerating-sales-decline/). Ratings agency [S&P Global](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/sp-i-china-property-slump-worse-than-expected.html) now expects primary real estate sales to fall between 10 and 14 percent in 2026, a steeper decline than the 5 to 8 percent it had projected only months earlier. Prices tell the same story. New-home prices across China's 70 major cities fell 2.7 percent year on year in December 2025, while secondary-market prices dropped 6.1 percent, the largest decline in 15 months. Total property sales for 2025 came in around 8.4 trillion yuan, barely half their 2021 peak. Highly leveraged developers have been hit hardest, with many defaulting on debt after years of aggressive, credit-fueled expansion left them exposed once financing tightened, a dynamic detailed in this [housing market analysis](https://www.gam.com/en/our-thinking/investment-opinions/china-housing-market-downturn-and-its-impact). Chinese authorities have so far held back major new support for the sector, choosing instead to channel resources toward advanced technology and manufacturing. For a global investor like CapitaLand, that environment makes it hard to justify the same level of headcount it carried during the boom years. ## What Happened to CapitaLand's China Assets? CapitaLand's China assets lost roughly 5 percent of their value in 2025, equivalent to about S$545 million, with offices and business parks recording the steepest declines, as reported by [Mingtiandi](https://www.mingtiandi.com/real-estate/finance/capitaland-china-trust-net-income-dips-9-4-in-2025/). Cumulative write-downs over five years have reached an estimated S$1.6 billion, a figure that points to a structural reset rather than a short cyclical dip. That distinction matters, because a structural decline reshapes how much management capacity a market actually needs over the long run. The pressure is visible across the group's China-focused vehicles. [CapitaLand China Trust](https://investor.clct.com.sg/), the listed trust that holds many of these malls and business parks, reported net income down 9.4 percent for 2025 as retail and business-park performance slumped. When the assets under management lose value and the trusts that hold them generate less income, the case for a large local workforce weakens further. Each layer of the structure, from the underlying buildings to the listed trusts to the managers who oversee them, feels the same downward pull, and headcount is one of the few levers a manager can pull quickly. The asset mix makes the squeeze worse. Offices and business parks, which led the declines, depend on corporate tenants who are themselves cautious about expansion in a slow economy, so vacancy and rent pressure feed directly into lower valuations. Retail malls face softer consumer spending as Chinese households stay defensive about big purchases. With each property type under strain at the same time, there is little internal cushion to offset the losses, which is part of why the write-downs have stacked up year after year rather than reversing. ## How Is CapitaLand Responding to the Slump? Rather than wait for prices to recover, CapitaLand is leaning into a capital recycling strategy, selling mature China assets and redeploying the proceeds into higher-return opportunities. The company has been moving assets into onshore Chinese real estate investment trusts, including the divestment of the CapitaMall Yuhuating retail property into [CapitaLand Commercial C-REIT](https://www.capitaland.com/en/about-capitaland/newsroom/news-releases/international/2025/september/english-translation-of-chinese-speech-by-puah-tze-shyang--ceo--c.html), with a second C-REIT targeting offices and hospitality planned for the second and third quarters of 2026. The approach lets the firm free up capital while keeping a foothold in markets it believes will eventually stabilize. The broader business is also pivoting toward fee-earning fund management. CapitaLand Investment's funds under management grew 7 percent to S$125 billion by the end of 2025, and the firm has set a target of S$200 billion by 2028. Total equity raised nearly doubled to S$6.5 billion for the year. That tilt away from owning depreciating bricks and toward managing other people's capital changes the kind of roles the company needs, favoring fund, investment, and capital-markets professionals over property operations staff in slow markets. ## Where Is CapitaLand Growing Instead of China? The China cuts are only half the story, because the company is actively expanding in other markets and asset classes. CapitaLand has been pushing into [data centres](https://www.capitaland.com/en/about-capitaland/newsroom/news-releases/international/2025/february/capitaland-investment-expands-global-data-centre-portfolio-with-.html), acquiring a freehold land parcel in Osaka to build its first data centre in Japan with a total investment of more than US$700 million, part of a portfolio that now spans nine countries. In India, [CapitaLand India Trust](https://www.minichart.com.sg/2025/08/14/capitaland-investment-announces-new-subsidiaries-acquisitions-and-strategic-investments-in-2025-expansion-in-china-india-singapore-and-australia/) signed a long-term agreement with a global hyperscaler for data centres under development, with plans to pre-lease around half of roughly 250 megawatts of gross power capacity. The diversification reaches well beyond data centres. The group has expanded its [self-storage business](https://www.capitaland.com/en/about-capitaland/newsroom/news-releases/international/2025/october/capitaland-investment-managed-extra-space-asia-continues-its-str.html), with Extra Space Asia investing nearly S$100 million in a flagship Singapore development and acquiring facilities in Tokyo, while a minority investment in a logistics platform supports growth across Australia, Japan, and the United States. New fund structures, including a second India business park fund that brings in majority third-party capital while keeping operational control, show where the company sees demand. For job seekers, the message is that the openings are migrating toward growth sectors and growth geographies, not disappearing entirely. ## What Does This Mean for Asia Pacific's Property Job Market? CapitaLand's cuts land in a region where the property hiring picture is uneven. The wider Asia Pacific commercial real estate market is forecast to hold up reasonably well in 2026, with investment and leasing activity expected to strengthen, according to the [CBRE](https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports/asia-pacific-real-estate-market-outlook-2026) market outlook. Office demand is being driven by technology firms benefiting from artificial intelligence adoption, along with wealth management and professional services groups, as detailed in the [PwC](https://www.pwc.com/sg/en/publications/emerging-trends-in-real-estate-apac.html) emerging trends report. That split matters for job seekers. Roles tied directly to Chinese property assets are contracting, while functions linked to fund management, data centres, logistics, and tech-driven leasing are holding firmer. In Singapore specifically, hiring has cooled across the broader economy, as noted by [Vulcan Post](https://vulcanpost.com/911352/drop-in-hiring-hits-singapore-job-market/), even though the local real estate sector has stayed relatively stable. Inside China the pressure is sharper still, with urban youth unemployment for those aged 16 to 24 hovering around 16 percent in early 2026 and a record 12.7 million university graduates set to enter the workforce, according to the [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3333652/china-braces-record-127-million-graduates-entering-tight-job-market-2026). The takeaway is that geography and function, not just the industry label, now decide where the openings are. ## What This Means for Your Career? If your work touches China property directly, this is a moment to broaden your exposure. The roles seeing the steepest cuts are local operations and asset management positions tied to malls, offices, and business parks whose values are still falling. The roles that are growing sit on the capital side of the business and in newer asset classes, including fund management, investment analysis, data centre development, logistics, and the structuring work behind vehicles like onshore C-REITs. Transferable skills carry the most weight here, because someone who has managed a leasing pipeline or underwritten an acquisition can often move that expertise into a data centre or logistics platform without starting over. [Lacey Kaelani](https://www.metaintro.com), CEO of [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com), told [People Managing People](https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/workforce-management/ai-layoffs/) that "AI is not completely eliminating roles, but instead restructuring roles and therefore slowing hiring for some jobs." The same restructuring logic applies here, where a company is not so much exiting a market as reshaping which skills it pays for. Professionals who can speak the language of capital recycling, fund flows, and cross-border investment will find more doors open than those anchored to a single shrinking asset class. Building skills in financial analysis, fund operations, and the markets that are actually expanding, from data centres to logistics, is the most practical hedge against a downturn that shows few signs of ending soon. It also helps to follow where the capital is moving, because hiring tends to follow investment with a lag of a few quarters. Watching which markets a firm raises money for, and which assets it buys rather than sells, is often a better signal of future openings than any single layoff headline. For early-career professionals in particular, targeting the geographies and sectors where managers are still deploying capital is a more durable strategy than chasing whichever market happens to be cheapest to enter today. ## People Also Asked ### Q: How many jobs did CapitaLand cut in China? A: CapitaLand Investment reduced its China workforce by about 10 percent in 2025, equal to roughly 365 positions. The company's total global headcount fell to 9,542 from 10,158 the year before, according to its sustainability report as reported by [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-31/singapore-s-capitaland-sheds-10-of-china-staff-amid-downturn). ### Q: Why is China's property market still falling in 2026? A: Sales and prices are still declining because demand remains weak and authorities have held back major new support. China's top 100 developers saw January 2026 sales fall 27 percent year on year, and [S&P Global](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/sp-i-china-property-slump-worse-than-expected.html) expects full-year sales to drop between 10 and 14 percent. ### Q: Is real estate still a good career path in Asia? A: Yes, but the strongest demand has shifted. Functions like fund management, data centres, logistics, and tech-driven office leasing are holding up across [Asia Pacific](https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports/asia-pacific-real-estate-market-outlook-2026), while roles tied to distressed China assets are contracting, so positioning matters more than ever. Looking for your next opportunity? [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com) connects professionals to roles beyond the job board. 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