As part of what it calls a reorganisation exercise, TikTok, the Chinese short-video making app has decided to cut the size of its sales and advertising teams. At least 60 people will be affected in this round of job cuts.
The objective is reportedly to cut costs. The cuts will primarily be carried out in New York, Austin, Los Angeles and some locations outside of the US. The exact number of employees impacted has not been officially communicated yet. Some media reports even peg the figure at 100.
A townhall meeting is to take place today, 23 January following this announcement.
TikTok’s US workforce is about 7,000 strong, whereas its parent company, ByteDance has over 1,50,000 employees worldwide.
In October 2023, TikTok had grabbed headlines when it came to light that the popular short-video app had asked its managers to give lower ratings to employees during performance reviews. At the time, the company had told the media that the move was aimed at ensuring a fair distribution of performance ratings among its over one lakh employees worldwide. Reportedly, in mid-October, senior management and human resources staff conveyed to managers the directive to increase the allocation of performance evaluations at the bottom end of the company’s bell-curve rating system. This adjustment was also expected to significantly raise the number of subpar ratings assigned to certain teams, possibly doubling or even tripling them.
Earlier last year, the firm had also modified its bonus structure in a way that some employees believed would lead to smaller bonus payouts. TikTok’s annual bonuses are typically determined based on an individual’s performance reviews.
