Baidu Begins Major Layoffs After Reporting Quarterly Loss

Troubled by repeated setbacks and mounting competition, China’s tech giant Baidu has launched a major round of layoffs. At least six people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the job cuts, which began this week, will affect multiple business units.

Baidu, China’s largest search engine operator, initiated the layoffs after reporting a quarterly loss in its financial results released on 18 November. The reductions are expected to continue through the rest of the year.

Sources said the exact number of job cuts could not be confirmed, but internally the move is being viewed as a “large-scale layoff.” In some units, performance-based cuts may reach up to 40%.

AI Division to Remain Largely Unaffected

According to the report, the mobile ecosystem group will face the largest impact. However, roles related to artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing will mostly remain safe, with Baidu planning to allocate even more resources to AI-related work.

Baidu’s workforce has been shrinking for several years:

• 2022: 41,300 employees

• 2023: 39,800 employees

• End of 2024: 35,900 employees

Revenue Falls as Competition Intensifies

Baidu’s revenue has declined for two consecutive quarters. In the third quarter, total revenue fell 7%, while online advertising revenue dropped 18%. During this period, the company posted a loss of 11.23 billion yuan (USD 1.59 billion).

Despite long-standing investments in AI, the sector has yet to offset the decline of Baidu’s core online advertising business. Social platforms Rednote and ByteDance’s Douyin are rapidly capturing market share.

Although Baidu became the first major Chinese company to launch a ChatGPT-style service in 2023, its Ernie language model has fallen behind the competing models of Alibaba and DeepSeek. After shifting strategies several times this year, Baidu has also made its model open-source.

DBTech/BMT/OR