ByteDance-owned TikTok has let go of its entire workforce in India, after it was banned three years ago due to concerns stemming from national security.

Three years ago, India banned TikTok for national security reasons. Since then, TikTok maintained an office but has now laid off all employees in India.

TikTok’s Indian employees were reportedly in charge of markets such as Dubai and South America. After ByteDance failed to reach an agreement with the Indian government, it decided to lay off the entire Indian team three years later.

In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson said, “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.”

According to a report by The Economic Times, the total workforce in the Indian office was 40, and will be paid nine months of severance pay.

A close source has told The Economic Times that “TikTok India employees were told that February 28 would be their last day and were given feelers to look out for other opportunities for some time as it was conveyed that restarting India operations was not going to take off because of the government’s stance on Chinese apps.”

In the past, TikTok was a major market for the company and had a user base second only to China. However, due to national security concerns over alleged storage and sharing of personal user data with China, the app was banned.

Last December, the House administration arm banned TikTok from all devices managed by the U.S. House of Representatives. In the US, he app may face a similar fate as it did in India, three years ago.

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