On the evening of the 22nd, news of the Baidu Mobile Ecological Business Group (MEG) layoffs began circulating on Weibo and workplace social networking platforms. Some people said that all of MEG's game departments had been laid off, while others said that game distribution employees had been laid off, and other groups might have left some people.

A Baidu employee confirmed to “Late LatePost” that MEG did lay off employees, mainly due to poor department performance and pressure on performance, and layoffs to cut costs. The person also said that MEG has laid off the most employees, and that other business groups are also laying off.

The predecessor of MEG was the highly controversial Baidu Search Company. After the restructuring, Baidu Executive Vice President Shen Dou was responsible.

Baidu's main business and foreign investment are under serious pressure this year.

Ad revenue grew only 4.2% in the third quarter. On November 17 of last year, Baidu purchased Huanju Group's domestic video entertainment live streaming business with about 3.6 billion US dollars in cash. Since then, Huanju's stock price has dropped 45% cumulatively. When other investment losses are taken into account, Baidu's operating profit in the third quarter shrank 62% year-on-year.

At the same time, iQiyi, which is owned by Baidu, is also under great pressure on cash flow. At the beginning of this month, iQiyi laid off about 40% of its employees.