BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing will cut 15 percent of its staff this year, or around 2,000 jobs, the company said Friday.

Didi CEO Cheng Wei said the company will focus on its core mobility services and cut business units not critical to its main ride-hailing services.

However, Didi said it will hire 2,500 workers this year in areas involving safety technologies, product and driver management and international expansion.

In 2018, Didi suffered a total loss of 10.9 billion yuan (around 1.6 billion U.S. dollars). It shelled out more than 11.3 billion yuan in subsidies for drivers.