Baidu, the largest Chinese online search engine, shut down its software department on July 10 and made 30 employees redundant.

 

The layoffs, the first ever in Baidu history, are just part of a strategic adjustment in order to focus resources on its core business, said Baidu in a press release sent to Xinhua on Friday.

 

"Enterprises Software was not part of our core search business and accounted for an immaterial amount of our business," said the press release.

 

The Beijing News reported on Friday that Baidu's Chief Operation Officer Zhu Hongbo attributed the closure of the software department to its poor performance in profit-making when informing the employees of their dismissal.

 

The decision has sparked angry responses from the employees who have been made redundant despite Baidu's promise to give them redundancy packages.

 

They claimed that the company's actions have contravened China's Labor Law, which dictates that the laid-off employees should be given one month's notice. The employees have also said the compensation is well below their expectations.

 

Founded in the Silicon Valley, California in 1999, Nasdaq-listed Baidu now has about 2,000 employees.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 15, 2006)