ByteDance’s application, TikTok, wants to cut the number of employees in India. This step came after TikTok was banned from operating in India.
“We have worked diligently to comply with India’s order from June, although we did not approve it. Given the lack of feed back from the government on how to solve this problem in the next 7 months, we are saddened to decide to reduce our workforce in India,” TikTok said in a statement launched by CNBC on Wednesday (27/1/2021).
Interim head of TikTok, Vanessa Pappas, said the company had been working tirelessly to avoid layoffs of company employees. However, this struggle could not be sustained any longer because the Indian government had not stopped the ban on the use of TikTok.
“However, we cannot responsibly remain fully staffed while our application remains idle. Although we do not know when we will return to India, we are confident in our resilience, and want to do so in the future,” Pappas explained in a statement of memos distributed among employees in India.
The company decided it would retain only a fraction of the employees who had important roles in India. On the other hand, the prospects for TikTok in other countries are very strong, while in India there are big challenges from political issues. In fact, before the government ban, India was one of TikTok’s biggest markets.
For information, the Indian government has blocked 118 applications made in China, including TikTok. The ban was caused by clashes between India and China on the border of the two countries, to be precise the border of the Himalayas in the Ladakh region. The clash resulted in the death of at least 20 Indian soldiers.
