Heaptalk, Jakarta — ByteDance’s subsidiary TikTok reportedly intends to hold major layoffs for its employees globally, which is claimed to affect the operations and marketing division. TikTok will notify the laid-off team on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, as The Information reported.
The company refuses to reveal the number of employees affected by this layoff step. However, TikTok employees stated that the company would reduce its workforce significantly, to around 1,000 workers from the fields of operations, content, and marketing.
ByteDance’s TikTok will also diminish its global user operations team, which manages user support and communications. The rest will be transferred to other divisions, such as TikTok’s trust and safety, marketing, and product.
The last wave of layoffs to hit this video-sharing company occurred in January, when around 60 workers from the sales and advertising division were laid off. In addition, the TikTok parent company is also laying off hundreds of employees in 2022 as part of company efficiency.
The scale of the layoffs is unusual for a social media company, which typically takes smaller efficiency measures. Moreover, the issue is getting worse after TikTok threatened to be banned in the United States following the accusation of the superpower to TikTok’s parent company regarding the data collection for its users in the US.
Despite the controversy in Congress over ByteDance, TikTok, which is headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, continues to lead the position on the iOS App Store’s entertainment charts. The app also reported possessing 150 million users in the States. TikTok’s Daily Active Users (DAU) in the US comprise only about 5% of ByteDance’s DAUs worldwide. Meanwhile, the US market accounted for only 25% of TikTok’s revenue last year.
