TikTok Fires Entire Indian Employees, Closes Shop

TikTok fires Indian employees three years since the country banned it. The 15-second video platform, TikTok fired its entire Indian employees just as the company closes shop in the country.

Recall that TikTok has been banned in India since 2020, along side 300 other apps.

The Indian government had banned TikTok and other Chinese apps over national security.

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The government had said that TikTok and other Chinese apps were collecting private data of their users and sharing with the Chinese government.

Three years down the line of the ban, TikTok, which has not been able to resolve issues with the Indian government has decided to sack the entire employees.

ET report states that a TikTok spokesperson said thus in a statement:

“We have taken the decision to close our India remote sales support hub, which was put in place at the end of 2020 to provide support to our global and regional sales teams.

“We greatly appreciate these employees and their impact on our company, and will ensure they are supported at this difficult time.”

Indian Market Base:

The social media company has a huge users’ base in India, indicating a large market in the country.

In 2019, TikTok has the largest user base in India, outside China. It was the top downloaded app in India on the Android platform.

However, a year later, particularly in 2020 when the ban came in and till the current moment, the company’s shares has waned greatly.

Severance Fee Promise:

Meanwhile, TikTok has promised the sacked employees 90 days severance fee.

It also asked them to fill a form that could guarantee them a re-employment should the company launch back in the country if the government grants same.

Employee speaks:

Meanwhile, in a chat with the media platform, ET, some employees said the company had alerted them of the plan to sack.

One of the employees had told the medium thus:

“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.”

TikTok joins several other tech companies that have sacked employees in the recent weeks.

Implication:

Other platforms like  Amazon, Twitter, Meta, Google have recently sacked thousands of their employees.

This is in a wave of massive sacks that greeted the tech world since 2022.

There are indications that more tech platforms will equally layoff staff in the coming weeks.

Although TikTok sacking its entire Indian employees is not entirely a function of the company’s doings, the wave of massive staff sacks involving tech companies, however, has raised up concerns as to the future of tech talents.

The recent opportunities revealed by AI has also made the future look gloomier for tech talents.