TikTok, which has been banned in India, has laid off its entire team in the country, letting go of its remote sale support hub employees in New Delhi.The Chinese-based video-sharing service has been unavailable in the Indian nation since 2020.
However, it kept a few employees to offer services to other markets. But this time, TikTok has decided to let go of these remaining workers.
TikTok Layoffs Indian Employees This 2023
It is worth noting that the Chinese tech giant previously hoped to "reconnect" with its community in India in June 2022. However, as per the South China Morning Post, TikTok dismissed plans to come back in the highly populous nation.
A couple of months after those remarks, the video-sharing platform sack its remaining workforce in the country.
The South China Morning Post notes that the remaining employees in India support other markets where TikTok is available, such as Brazil and Dubai.
The Economic Times India reports that the tech behemoth will be bidding farewell to all its employees in India on February 28.
The anonymous source of the news outlet claims that "the entire team was informed."
Even before the layoffs had been official, the source disclosed that they were told about the possibility of shutting down the operations in the country.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson of TikTok confirmed the looming layoff in their India remote sales support hub.
The TikTok spokesperson says they "have taken the decision to close our India remote sales support hub."
The remaining employees of the video app in the country are reportedly getting up to nine months of severance pay.
India Ban
Before TikTok got banned in India, it was huge in the country.
The Hong Kong-based outfit, the South China Morning Post, notes that India was the largest market for downloads of the Chinese video-sharing platform.
To put it in perspective, the United States only took 8.7 percent of the total downloads of TikTok. On the other hand, India takes 18 percent of the overall app downloads.
However, the popularity of the video-sharing app in the country ended in June 2022 when it was banned.
The government decided to ban the country's ByteDance-owned app over national security concerns.
TikTok is not the only Chinese app affected by it. Roughly 200 apps based in China have been blacklisted, such as lending and betting apps.
And more than two years since, the ByteDance-owned service went on to dismantle its team in India.
