Indian startups want to hire TikTok employees affected by job cuts

With TikTok announcing the decision to scale down the size of its workforce constituting over 2,000 employees in the country, Indian short video platforms like Bolo Indya and Chingari have expressed willingness to hire some of the affected employees.

TikTok said it decided to downsize the workforce in India as it has not received a clear direction from the government on how and when its apps could be reinstated.

Some reports pegged the number of employees who will be affected by the decision at around 1,800, although there is no official confirmation from the ByteDance-owned platform yet.

Bolo Indya said it is looking to ramp up its team by recruiting people from the talent pool hit by the Chinese apps ban in India including Bytedance platforms like TikTok and Helo.

"It is unfortunate to see Indian talent in a fix as a result of Chinese app ban in India. Indians working in these companies are highly talented, enthusiastic, committed, and passionate to create a positive impact," Varun Saxena, CEO and Founder Bolo Indya, said in a statement.

"We look forward to onboard quite a few of them where there is a strong cultural fit as well and have them as part of our journey to empower content creators to transform social capital to financial independence, and at the same time ensure a high user delight in consuming content on the platform."

The company had already confirmed last week that it is in advanced talks to raise fresh funding which shall be utilised to ramp up the team by close to 100 per cent.

The hiring would be across domains including business development, user engagement, product management, community management, content strategy, content moderation functions, Bolo Indya said.

Besides this, the company is also looking at filling various Vice President and Assistant Vice President level positions to expand its leadership team.

Launched in May 2019, Bolo Indya claims to have over 68 lakh monthly active users.

Another homegrown short video platform Chingari also said that it will hire some of the potential talent affected by job cuts.

"Indians are capable of doing wonders. And our priority right now is Indian market and in near future we will expand our footprints," said Aditya Kothari, Co-founder and chief strategist, Chingari.

"The lay off is unfortunate. None of the companies or founder wish so for his or her employee. We will hire some of the potential talent," he said.

TikTok featured among the 59 Chinese apps that the government has decided to ban permanently.

The development came several months after the government had first banned Chinese apps temporarily last June.