As many as 40 people were given the pink slips on Monday after a call and were told that they would be given up to six-seven months of severance pay, they said.
“The 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,” one of the sources who did not wish to be named told ET.
Several of the workers at the India office were mostly working on the Dubai and Brazil markets after the government banned TikTok and nearly 300 other Chinese apps in phases starting June 2020 citing national security concerns.
“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,” another source told ET.
“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,” a TikTok spokesperson told ET on Friday.
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TikTok had more than 200 million users in India at the time and considered the country its biggest overseas market. The app’s exit led to rival Meta-owned Instagram launching its own short-form video platform Reels, which has become a money spinner for the social media platform.
Earlier this month, ET reported that TikTok’s Sameer Singh, who joined the platform in 2019 to lead monetisation in India, was elevated as the head of global business solutions in North America.
Singh was leading business solutions in Southeast Asia as the platform withdrew from India.
His move to the North American market comes at a time when TikTok is being heavily scrutinized by the American government and calls for a blanket ban have become widespread.
As per his LinkedIn profile, Singh took charge of his current role from January.
He was head of global business solutions for APAC from July 2021 till January 2023, where he was responsible for leading sales and business marketing solutions across all TikTok business products in the region.
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