TikTok Headcount in Europe Passes 5,000 While Rivals Retrench

While its Big Tech rivals cut jobs, social media app TikTok now employs more than 5,000 people in Europe, it said in an emailed statement Friday. That’s up from just 208 in 2019, according to filings for TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd., which operates TikTok for users in the UK, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland.

(Bloomberg) — While its Big Tech rivals cut jobs, social media app TikTok now employs more than 5,000 people in Europe, it said in an emailed statement Friday. That’s up from just 208 in 2019, according to filings for TikTok Information Technologies UK Ltd., which operates TikTok for users in the UK, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland.

Owned by China’s Bytedance Ltd., TikTok is at an advanced stage of planning for a second data center in Ireland, and is holding talks to establish a third somewhere on the continent “in line with the growth of our community,” which now numbers more than 150 million monthly users in Europe, the update added. It reiterated commitments made last year to reduce employee access to European user data, minimize data flows outside of Europe, and store European user data locally. 

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