TikTok CEO assures Indian employees there will be no layoffs or salary cuts

A source quoting Kevin Mayer, TikTok CEO's speech said, "There will be no job cuts or salary cuts as ByteDance (TikTok's parent firm) intend to invest more in India in upcoming years."

New Delhi:Two days after the government of India announced a ban on TikTok and other 58 Chinese applications, Kevin Mayer, TikTok CEO on Tuesday addressed the company employees working in India and assured them that there will be no job cuts and we look forward to continue playing an active role in the main frame of Digital India.

A source quoting Kevin Mayer speech said, "There will be no job cuts or salary cuts as ByteDance (TikTok's parent firm) intend to invest more in India in upcoming years."

While addressing around 2,000 ByteDance India employees, Mayer said our teams are already in talks with government agencies and very soon we shall resolve it.

According to the sources, TikTok's India head Nikhil Gandhi and Head of Helo app Rohan Mishra were also the part of meeting and told the Indian employees that we have come out of similar situations in the past stronger, and we hope that this issue resolved quickly.

After the video-conference meet, TikTok CEO also sent a mail to Indian employees of the company and stated, "...TikTok continues to comply with all data privacy and security requirements under Indian law and places the highest importance on user privacy and integrity."

"Our employees are our biggest strength and their well-being is our top most priority. We have also assured more than 2,000 strong workforce that we will do everything in our power to restore the positive experiences and opportunities that they can be proud of," TikTok CEO added in his statement to Indian employees.

"The government of India has issued an interim order for the blocking of 59 apps, including TikTok and we are in the process of complying with it. We have been invited to meet with concerned government stakeholders for an opportunity to respond and submit clarifications," Nikhil Gandhi, head of TikTok India said on Monday.

Government sources said that a joint-secretary panel with officials from ministries of IT, Home Affairs, Telecom and Law will likely be meeting the representatives of these Chinese apps on Tuesday.

Sources said that the interim order to ban 59 Chines apps will remain in force until the secretary-level panel takes its final decision.

"These banned Chines apps have been under government radar for a very long time and they have stealing Indian users' data in an unauthorised manner to servers outside India," a government source added.

Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation criticised the centre's move to ban the Chinese app and said that the government should release the legal order through which the ban has come into effect, with the public.