Recent reports have revealed that ByteDance Ltd., the parent company of TikTok, has been compelled to lay off hundreds of employees in Malaysia.

A source informed The Malaysian Reserve that most of the affected workers were involved in content moderation for the platform, not only in Southeast Asia but also in other regions.

"That’s how we were all treated"

Chad (a pseudonym), a former employee, shared with WORLD OF BUZZ that nearly 700 employees were laid off. He explained that the news was delivered on October 9 at 7 PM, with all access to emails, social media accounts, and internal systems cut off by 8 PM. An email followed, officially announcing the retrenchments.

“On October 9 at 7 PM, all queues and permissions were cut off. By 8 PM, we received an email about the retrenchment. That’s how we were informed of the layoffs. Our last day will be on November 11,” Chad said.

Reuters also reported that TikTok confirmed the layoffs on Friday, although it couldn’t specify the exact number of employees affected in Malaysia. Globally, the company expects several hundred employees to be impacted as part of a broader restructuring of its moderation operations.

Some employees were transferred to other teams

According to the South China Morning Post, TikTok internally announced in May that job cuts were expected to affect an undisclosed portion of the approximately 1,000 global positions. These cuts, anticipated to be in the hundreds, particularly target the global user operations team, which is being disbanded.

Additionally, US tech publication The Information reported that the layoffs would affect “a large percentage” of TikTok employees. However, some employees were offered the chance to transfer to other teams.