Google is hiring dozens of marketing and technical employees to defend a shrinking market share after closing its Chinese search engine six months ago in a dispute over censorship.
Mainland users usually can reach Google’s Chinese-language site in Hong Kong, which has helped Google retain its rank as China’s second-most-popular search engine.
But Hong Kong access is occasionally blocked and some users have defected to local alternatives, mostly to Baidu.com.
Google has kept a research centre and advertising sales offices in China and is promoting its Android operating system for mobile phones. It launched what it says is a “large-scale recruiting campaign” for at least 40 posts, from marketing manager to software designer.
“Our engineering teams in Beijing and Shanghai continue to focus on bringing a steady stream of innovation to our services in China,” the company said.