A spokeswoman for China’s ByteDance said Friday that it will lay off people at its Indonesian unit after buying a local e-commerce firm and merging it with TikTok
ByteDance, which owns TikTok, did not disclose the number of employees this will impact. In an earlier report, Bloomberg stated that there will be 450 laid-off employees.
Through the completion of a transaction in January, ByteDance acquired majority ownership in Tokopedia, an Indonesian e-commerce company, from the GoTo group.
Nuraini Razak, a representative for ByteDance, issued a statement to Reuters stating that the firm would “make necessary adjustments” due to the merger between TikTok and Tokopedia.
“We identified areas to strengthen our organization and better align our teams with company goals,” she explained, pointing out that the business would “aim to support employees throughout this transition.”
Previously, ByteDance had its e-commerce operation in Indonesia through its TikTok app; however, this was prohibited by an Indonesian rule that stated social media applications could not function as a platform for conducting online business transactions.
In Southeast Asia’s most populous economy, Tokopedia is recognized as one of the most prominent e-commerce platforms.
