Nearly three years after TikTok was outlawed in India, the Bytedance-owned social media platform has completely fired all of its employees there. In 2020, TikTok, which had the second-highest user base in India, was prohibited for reasons of national security. Even though the business lost market share in India, it nonetheless maintained a presence there. The majority of the TikTok personnel that worked out of the India headquarters focused on the Dubai and Brazil markets. Bytedance attempted to negotiate a solution with the Indian government but was unsuccessful in getting back into the Indian market. In the US as well, the app’s future is in jeopardy.
According to the most recent developments, TikTok India employed a total of forty people. The staff received pink slips on Monday during a call and were promised nine months of severance money.
“The TikTok India employees were told that February 28 would be their last day and were given feelers to look out for other opportunities for some time as it was conveyed that restarting India operations was not going to take off because of the government’s stance on Chinese apps,” a source close to the organization told the publication.
The employees working out of the India office were primarily working on the Brazil and Dubai markets. Tiktok was banned in India along with 300 other Chinese apps over national security issues. “The entire team was informed. We were anyway told some time ago that business in India may be shut off, so look for jobs. Most people will be given 90 days severance,” another source told ET. Bytedance has refused to comment on the layoffs.
Earlier this month, TikTok elevated Sameer Singh as the head of global business solutions in North America. Singh joined TikTok in 2019.
TikTok had a massive userbase in India. It was among the biggest markets outside China and in 2019, the 15-second video platform was the top downloaded app in India on the Android platform. It was not only used for entertainment purposes but provided employment opportunities to people from all walks of life.The app was banned because it was found storing the personal data of Indian users. It was alleged by the Indian security experts that the stored data is shared with the government outlets in China.