After Company Losses, Baidu Lays Off Employees

Baidu lays off his employees (photo: @yaichina)

JAKARTA Baidu, a competitor to Google in China, is cutting employees from various units. This layoff (PHK) came after Baidu was reported to have suffered losses in the third quarter.

This cuts is referred to as Baidu's biggest layoff in recent years. The company is known to have cut four of the nine members in Beijing's mobile ecosystem unit.

The affected employees will leave the company in December to arrive. All employees who are laid off will certainly receive adequate compensation because Baidu has given a severance pay notification.

The compensation provided will cover a one-month salary for each work period. In addition, affected employees will also receive an additional one to three months of salary.

One employee in Guangzhou confirmed the issue. Launching from the South China Morning Post, this unnamed employee has signed a severance agreement. Although he had doubts, this compensation offer was accepted because it was considered 'reasonable'.

It is not yet known how many employees Baidu will cut. However, it is known that this layoff occurred after Baidu revealed a loss of 1.6 billion (IDR 26.7 trillion) in the third quarter of this year. Most of this loss occurred due to a decrease in the value of the company's assets.

Baidu actually experienced a 50 percent jump in Artificial Intelligence (AI) revenue, but this has not been able to cover its losses. Baidu's overall revenue fell 7 percent year-on-year.

Not only layoffs, Baidu also restructured the development of its AI model. The company formed two separate units for the basic model and application model. These two new units will be responsible for Ernie's AI model series.