TikTok plans to lay off a “large percentage” of its 1,000 global employees from within its operations and marketing teams beginning Wednesday, The Information said in a Tuesday report with several staffers.
The scale of the layoffs is unusual for the media platform, which is currently owned by Chinese company ByteDance and typically takes cost-cutting measures in smaller stages. The reported downsizing comes less than a month after President Joe Biden signed a law that bans TikTok in the U.S. unless it is sold to a U.S.-based company.
ByteDance, in turn, sued the U.S. federal government, saying that the ban violates the First Amendment rights of users in the country.
ByteDance has said in the past that it has no plans to sell the app or its underlying algorithm, but according to The Information, the company is considering sales that don’t include the algorithm.
A number of unidentified employees told the tech news outlet that the cuts will be made mostly to the social media site’s content and marketing teams and that notifications will be sent late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.
TikTok will also disband its global user operations team, which handles user support and user communications. Remaining employees will be reassigned to the company’s other teams, such as trust and safety and marketing, as well as content and product.
According to TikTok, in 2023, 7,000 of its employees were based in the U.S., although the layoffs are expected to take place on a global scale. At that time, the app also reported that it had 150 million users in the States.
Approximately 80% of TikTok’s $20 billion 2023 revenue came from the U.S., the Financial Times reported on March 18.
Reps at TikTok declined TheWrap’s request for comment.
A previous version of this story, citing The Information, incorrectly stated that there would be 1,000 total layoffs at TikTok.
