By
staff writer
April 17th, 2024
TikTok-parent ByteDance said that these job cuts come as part of the company’s plans to streamline operations.
As per the latest reports, ByteDance, the parent firm of the social media platform TikTok has cut hundreds of jobs across multiple departments by the end of 2022. TikTok has reportedly joined the list of companies that have been on a lay-off spree recently. Two sources familiar with the matter told SCMP that the layoffs come as TikTok plans to streamline its operations.
ByteDance Cutting Jobs
This move has also affected employees at Douyin which is the Chinese version of TikTok and has 600 million daily active users. ByteDance is one of the largest employers in china with a total workforce of over 100,000 employees worldwide. These job cuts represent a very small percentage of its workforce. With ByteDance being privately owned, they aren’t obliged to publicly disclose any information related to its business.
China’s tech sector has been facing major turbulence especially due to the major policy changes initiated by the government. In China’s tech sector, job cuts usually happen in the name of business optimization. Besides, it’s also a common practice for employers to sack underperformers.
Apart from that, the widespread Covid in China has impacted several businesses in the country last year. Other tech giants like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings have cut thousands of jobs in 2022.
As per the report by SCMP, ByteDance’s enterprise collaboration tool Feishu, has been the hardest hit department. It has impacted a total of 10 percent of their workforce. The sources said that ByteDance will compensate all those laid-off employees based on their total years of job and an additional month of salary.
ByteDance Gears for Overseas Expansion
TikTok’s parent company is reported gearing up for an expansion into the overseas market where it’s hiring. The company’s website shows 10,000 job listings from marketing to engineering in cities such as London, Beijing, and Mountain View, California.
However, 2023 could be a very challenging year for ByteDance as TikTok is facing political headwinds in the US. The use of TikTok has been absolutely banned on all US federal government devices. Additionally, 19 states have blocked the app from state-managed devices. As per the latest reports, the White House is also considering the sale of TikTok’s US unit.
This is not the first time that TikTok is cutting jobs. Following Beijing’s ban on private tutoring in 2021, TikTok fired thousands of employees the same year. Last year in 2022, TikTok cut hundreds of jobs from its video game operations in Hangzhou and Shanghai.
Furthermore, there’s been a lot of uncertainty regarding the company’s IPO last year. Chief financial officer Julie Gao, however, said that ByteDance has no plans to go public.