HANGZHOU, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has pledged no layoffs this year, defying a wave of layoffs in the internet sector amid an economic slowdown.

Alibaba will continue to recruit new staff, ramp up training programs and utilize more platform resources to help create more jobs, Alibaba's CEO Daniel Zhang told an internal meeting Thursday.

Talks about Chinese internet companies laying off workers were spreading on social media platforms recently, followed by a number of internet firms in the country announcing plans to cut payrolls.

"This year we will not lay off employees, but will greatly utilize the Alibaba platform to stimulate consumption and generate more orders for the manufacturing and services sectors instead," Alibaba quoted Zhang's remarks at the meeting, in a statement Friday.

One of the biggest values of online platforms is to create jobs, Zhang stressed.

Alibaba said a number of new occupations, like trainers for AI customer service staff, engineers for its cloud computing business and shopping guides for its new retail business, have emerged on the platform.

By the end of 2018, the total staff number of Alibaba Group and its financial services affiliate Ant Financial exceeded 100,000 for the first time.