TikTok Shop US Employees Told to Work From Home as Layoffs Loom

TikTok informed US e-commerce employees to make money working from home Wednesday whereas awaiting emails relating to “difficult decisions,” suggesting the social media firm is making ready to chop jobs.

The Chinese-owned firm is contemplating methods to “create a more efficient operating model,” Mu Qing, who took over TikTok Shop within the US final month, stated in an inside memo reviewed by Bloomberg News. He informed employees to anticipate “operational and personnel changes to the e-commerce US operation center and global key accounts teams beginning early on Wednesday.”

The potential layoffs observe management modifications final month that included Mu, a former govt with the e-commerce arm of ByteDance Ltd.’s Douyin in China, taking up TikTok’s US e-commerce operations based mostly within the Seattle space.

His e-mail, which went out late Tuesday within the US, promised “compassion and support” for workers by means of the transition. TikTok has greater than 1,000 folks close to Seattle, with further places of work in New York, Texas and California.

“We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we navigate these difficult discussions,” the e-mail stated.

Representatives for ByteDance and TikTok didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

Despite TikTok Shop’s fast development, the video app’s future within the US is unsure, given the continued risk of a ban ought to it fail to promote the US portion of its enterprise. TikTok, which has 170 million energetic month-to-month customers, additionally faces uncertainty amid President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese exports and cancellation of a tax loophole for parcels of small worth.

The video app, which introduced in-app procuring to its tens of millions of American customers in 2023, is betting on e-commerce to raised monetize its recognition. TikTok Shop noticed its gross sales outdo competitors resembling Shein and PDD Holdings Inc.’s Temu within the US simply earlier than Trump’s disruptive commerce actions.

TikTok’s ascent has come below the highlight because the passing of a bipartisan legislation citing nationwide safety considerations to ban the social media phenom within the US if it’s not offered by its Chinese dad or mum — an effort that started in the course of the first Trump administration however was thwarted in court docket. Trump is now giving ByteDance further time to discover a deal to promote TikTok — a months-long course of that’s drawn curiosity from the likes of Amazon.com Inc. to Oracle Corp.

With help from Zheping Huang.

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