ByteDance has recruited a total of 1,089 foreign employees and applied for work visas (H-1B visas) for these employees to enter the US to work for TikTok, as of the end of September 2023.

Of these, Vietnam is in the top 5 countries with workers for short video sharing platforms in the US. The top are China, India, Taiwan (China) and Canada.

According to statistics from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there are 669 Chinese nationals of TikTok's H-1B employees, an increase of 50% compared to 2022.

Fourteen of them were recruited to work for the data security department - the unit responsible for protecting US user data.

Jobs include data science , anti-fraud, systems analysis and software engineering.

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60% of TikTok's H-1B visa applicants to the US are from mainland China. Photo: HLS

Besides TikTok, ByteDance also operates other platforms such as Lemon8 (an app similar to Pinterest) in the US.

Using the H-1B visa program to recruit talent from China is not unusual, as it is also the second most popular source country for U.S. companies in fiscal year 2023 (October 2022 to September 2023), according to USCIS data.

Notably, however, 61% of ByteDance's approved visa applications were for Chinese nationals, compared with an average of 12% for other companies in the US.

TikTok has come under scrutiny over the years due to its parent company's Chinese origins.

US officials have raised concerns that ByteDance could be forced to hand over TikTok user data in the country to a third party.

Some fear that TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool to advance Beijing's interests.

In April, the US Congress passed a law setting a deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok's US assets.

The deadline is January 19 next year, or the video-sharing app could be removed from app stores.

President-elect Donald Trump pledged during his campaign that he would "never ban TikTok," but his chances of saving the app are limited as he cannot be sworn in until January 20.

While it may be politically difficult for TikTok to recruit talent from China, it makes sense given the company's close ties to parent company ByteDance.

Current and former TikTok employees told Business Insider in 2021 that final product decisions for TikTok are often made by ByteDance employees in Beijing.

TikTok employees are also required to adhere to core workplace values ​​they call “ByteStyles.”

(According to SCMP, Bloomberg)

50% of Americans do not believe TikTok will be completely banned . The latest survey by Pew Research shows that less than 30% of American adults support a ban and 50% do not believe that the Chinese-origin application - TikTok will be completely banned.