TikTok and ByteDance hire hundreds of Chinese workers in US despite scrutiny


TikTok did not shy away from hiring employees from China last year, even as US officials accused the app of being a national security risk because its owner ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing.

Of the roughly 1,000 non-US employees that TikTok and ByteDance sought to hire for its US teams via H-1B visa applications between October 2022 and September 2023, most were from China.

Six hundred and sixty-nine of the 1,089 approved H-1B hires for TikTok and ByteDance last financial year were from China, a 50 per cent increase from the previous year, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data obtained by Business Insider via a Freedom of Information Act request. The federal government鈥檚 financial year runs from October through September.

The ByteDance office in Beijing. Photo: EPA-EFE
The ByteDance office in Beijing. Photo: EPA-EFE

Fourteen of those 669 approved hires were recruited to work under TikTok鈥檚 US Data Security Division, or USDS, a section of the company dedicated to keeping US user data out of the hands of the Chinese government and other actors that the US government has deemed a foreign adversary. Those roles included work in data science, fraud strategy, systems analysis, and software engineering.



Source link

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *