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ByteDance, one of China’s largest employers, laid off thousands of people last year. Photo: Reuters

TikTok owner ByteDance cuts hundreds of jobs at multiple departments in China, sources say

  • The job cuts were implemented at Douyin as well as its gaming and real estate operations, two sources said
  • The lay-offs came after CEO Liang Rubo told employees in December that the company needs to ‘get fit and beef up the muscle’ to streamline operations
ByteDance

ByteDance, owner of TikTok, laid off hundreds of employees across multiple departments at the end of 2022 as part of the company’s efforts to streamline operations, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The move has affected employees at Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok with 600 million daily active users, as well as its gaming and real estate operations, said the sources, who declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

The job cuts represent a small percentage of ByteDance’s workforce, one of the largest employers in China’s tech sector and with over 100,000 employees worldwide. As ByteDance is privately owned, it is not obliged to publicly disclose information related to its business.

Job cuts are usually conducted in name of business optimisation in China’s tech sector and it is also a common practice for employers to sack underperformers. Other Chinese internet giants, including Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, cut thousands of jobs in 2022.

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How China’s TikTok video app became a global sensation

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The lay-offs at ByteDance were first reported by Chinese media outlet Jiemian. ByteDance’s enterprise collaboration tool Feishu, also known as Lark, was among the hardest hit departments, affecting about 10 per cent of the employees, according to the report.

ByteDance declined to comment.

Those laid off will be compensated based on the number of years of service, plus one month’s salary, one of the sources said.

ByteDance is also hiring simultaneously. The company’s website has some 10,000 job listings, ranging from engineering to marketing, in cities worldwide, including Beijing, London and Mountain View, California.

The lay-offs came after chief executive Liang Rubo, who used to head human resources before taking over the top job from founder Zhang Yiming in 2021, told employees in late December that the company needs to “get fit and beef up the muscle”, a phrase he has repeatedly used in the past year in a bid to streamline operations.

ByteDance is in for a challenging year as TikTok faces political headwinds in the US and an unpredictable regulatory environment in China. TikTok has been banned from all US federal government devices, while at least 19 states have blocked it from state-managed devices. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House is also considering forcing a sale of TikTok’s US unit.
TikTok is owned by China’s ByteDance. Photo: Dreamstime/TNS
It is not the first time that the nearly decade-old company has cut jobs. It fired thousands in 2021 following Beijing’s ban on private tutoring, and in 2022 cut hundreds of jobs from its video game operations in Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Meanwhile, there is an air of uncertainty surrounding the company’s IPO plans. Chief financial officer Julie Gao told employees in September that ByteDance had no plans to go public.

One early investor in ByteDance, who declined to be named, said the company was not rushing plans for an IPO, adding there was no set schedule.

“There are just too many uncertainties,” the investor said.

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