TikTok Shop-Tokopedia Merger Could Leave Thousands of Employees Jobless; Almost 500 Already Terminated

By Giuliano De Leon

Jun 12 2024, 15:50 PM EDT

The TikTok Shop-Tokopedia merger in Indonesia is bad news for ByteDance's staff. Thousands of employees are expected to be laid off as part of the merger deal.

TikTok Shop-Tokopedia Merger Could Leave Thousands of Employees Jobless; Almost 500 Already Terminated — The logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok is seen during the launch of the TikTok and Indonesia's leading e-commerce site Tokopedia's Buy Local Campaign in Jakarta on December 12, 2023. YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images

TikTok Shop-Tokopedia Merger To Layoff Thousands of Employees

According to Business Times' latest report, TikTok's owner ByteDance is preparing for mass layoffs as part of its merger deal with Indonesia e-commerce giant Tokopedia. The company is also planning to scale back its operations significantly.

The South China Morning Post reported that ByteDance has already announced around 450 layoffs at its Indonesia-based e-commerce arm. This is considered to be the first mass layoff since the TikTok Shop-Tokopedia merger in January.

The 450 employees, around 9% of the workforce, are expected to be terminated before June ends. This was revealed by individuals familiar with ByteDance's activities.

ByteDance Reduces E-commerce Team Staff

Sources claimed that ByteDance is terminating employees across its e-commerce teams, including operations and advertising. They explained that the TikTok owner is doing this to avoid duplicate functions.

After the merger deal between TikTok Shop and Tokopedia, it was estimated that ByteDance's Indonesian e-commerce business has around 5,000 employees. But, around 1,000 of the staff could be terminated soon.

However, this is speculation since ByteDance hasn't commented on the ongoing layoffs.