TikTok Shop US Division Sees Another Round of Layoffs

TikTok has reportedly made the third round of layoffs in three months at its U.S. eCommerce division, TikTok Shop.

The company did not say how many jobs were cut, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 2).

“As the TikTok Shop business evolves, we regularly review our operations to ensure long-term success,” a TikTok spokesperson said in the report. “We’ve made the difficult decision to adjust parts of our team to better align with strategic priorities.”

The latest round of layoffs follows one in April and another in May, according to the report.

The U.S. division fell short of internal sales targets over the last year, while TikTok Shop has been the company’s fastest-growing business globally and opened in five new countries in Europe last year, the report said.

TikTok still faces a potential ban in the U.S. if it is not divested by its parent company, ByteDance. The extended deadline for divestment ends in mid-September, per the report.

It was reported in May that Mu Qing, who took over TikTok Shop in the U.S. in April, wrote in an internal memo that the company was examining ways to “create a more efficient operating model.”

According to that report, the company had more than 1,000 workers in the Seattle area, with offices in California, New York and Texas.

It was reported in December that in the seven days leading up to Cyber Monday, U.S. spending on TikTok Shop surpassed spending on Shein and Temu.

In late November, TikTok Shop announced that its sales had reached $100 million on Black Friday, after previously saying that the number of people purchasing goods on the platform each month had nearly tripled.

President Donald Trump said June 29 that he had found a group of investors to purchase the U.S. operations of TikTok away from ByteDance and that he thought the deal would gain China’s approval.

The U.S. government passed a law last year requiring ByteDance to divest its ownership in TikTok U.S. or face a ban of the social media platform. That law was driven by national security concerns, namely that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access information about Americans.