ByteDance to cut Jobs in India after TikTok ban

ByteDance has informed its employees in India that they will cut jobs and reduce their team size in India. This comes just after the Indian government withheld a ban on TikTok and other Chinese apps, as per the reports.

ByteDance, today at 10 a.m., shared the news with employees in India that only critical roles would be retained.

The company said they were left with no other option as the Indian government has not offered any clarity when TikTok could return to the country, a source told TechCrunch. TikTok was banned along with more than 100 other Chinese apps in June of last year, including PUBG Mobile.

ByteDance Acting Global Director Vanessa Pappas wrote a letter to her employees informing them of the company's downsizing plans immediately.

"As you can imagine, the magnitude of this decision is not easy. For the last several months, our management team has worked tirelessly to avoid having to separate anyone from the company. We've cut expenses, while still paying benefits. However, we simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while our apps remain un-operational," Pappas wrote.

Pappas said they weren't sure when it would be allowed to resume operations in India, but they remain hopeful.

The letter does not mention how many people TikTok will let out of its more than 2,000 employees in India. Industry insiders told Mint that TikTok employees have been looking for new opportunities for a while, with homegrown short video platforms looking to hire TikTok executives.

"It is deeply regretful that after supporting our 2000+ employees in India for more than half a year, we have no choice but to scale back the size of our workforce. We look forward to receiving the opportunity to relaunch TikTok and support the hundreds of millions of users, artists, storytellers, educators and performers in India."

This is the latest in the line of some quite troublesome developments for ByteDance employees in India. Following the TikTok ban at the end of June last year, employees in the country were asked to focus on developing other apps for the company, such as the Lark productivity suite, which has not been banned in India.

Employees were asked not to discuss these apps in public to avoid putting them at risk. The source also told TechCrunch that ByteDance stopped all India's marketing efforts to promote its other services in the country.