Visitors sit at the lobby of Baidu headquarters in Beijing. (Photo : www.scmp.com)
China's Internet search giant Baidu has confirmed a plan to freeze hiring new staff, becoming the country’s second major Internet company to change its personnel policy, the China Business News reported.
"Considering the current business model, the company has decided to implement a hiring freeze with immediate effect. Earlier job offers remain valid, but new recruitments for special strategic demand need to be approved by me and Robin (Li)," Liu Hui, Baidu vice president in charge of human resources, said in a memo emailed to staff on Oct. 20.
Although it confirmed the hiring freeze mentioned in Liu's email, Baidu said that the company's campus recruitment has not been affected as Baidu CEO Robin Li is set to attend a recruitment event at Fudan University in Shanghai on Oct. 26.
Baidu explained that the hiring freeze is being put in place to improve efficiency while believing in the principle of "building a big business with a small team."
The company, however, said that it is still searching for top talent, the report said.
Established in 2000, Baidu has currently more than 50,000 employees.
An industry observer said that the hiring freeze was introduced to address issues of efficiency and its bloated operations, not because of the decline in the Internet business or capital market.
The report said that Baidu has become more specific in selecting candidates in its campus recruitment, as it has signed an agreement in April with Xi'an Jiaotong University on training talent in the big data sector.
According to the report, Alibaba was the first to introduce plans for cutting new hires among China's top three Internet companies (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent). In April, Alibaba founder and chair Jack Ma said that the company does not plan to hire new people unless an employee leaves, adding that the company's workforce of 30,000 people is sufficient.
The report added that Alibaba was also reportedly reducing the number of recruits from campus hiring events in September.
Tencent, however, said that it would still need talent in several areas due to the rapid product development and new projects this year.
