File Photo/NBD

April 4 (NBD) -- Disney's streaming giant Hulu reportedly started to lay off employees in Beijing on March 20. 

Following the news, HRs of well-known tech enterprises such as ByteDance, Meituan, Alibaba, Kuaishou and Xiaomi are scrambling to hire former Lulu employees.

Profile visits of Hulu employees surged 207 times than that of the previous day, according to data released by career and social networking platform Maimai, which is also known as Chinese Linkedin. Big tech companies are competing to offer high salaries, with the average monthly salary reaching more than 50,000 yuan and the maximum salary reaching up to 100,000 yuan.

Hulu, an American streaming media giant, was founded by NBC Universal and Fox in 2007. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Lulu has a total of 8 offices and research and development centers worldwide. In March 2019, Disney acquired a stake in Hulu through the acquisition of 21st Century Fox's assets; Two months later, Disney and Comcast jointly announced that Disney will seize full operational control of Hulu.

Beijing is the second largest research and development center and also one of the earliest offices of Hulu. Many Hulu employees there are graduated from prestigious higher-educational institutions such as Tsinghua and Peking universities, disclosed several Maimai users.

It's noticed that more than 300 employees (90% of Hulu's workforce in Beijing) have been affected. The layoffs in China come as Disney started carrying out the first wave of cuts in a previously announced plan to slash 7,000 jobs in an effort to save $5.5 billion in costs and make its streaming business profitable.

Competition and regulation in China might be another reason behind the layoffs, according to market insiders. Hulu faces a number of strong competitors in China's video streaming market, such as iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku, and others.