Despite unemployment rates rising around the world, TikTok parent company ByteDance has recently placed 10,000 jobs attributed to the TikTok boom, deviating from an industry trend that has left many unemployed.

TikTok, a short-video app, has seen a surge in users during the coronavirus lockdown as people find extra time on their hands. Furthermore, the influx of high-profile celebrities and influencers have also encouraged a movement onto the platform. The app has also been used by front-line medical workers.

Within China, they have their own version of TikTok named Douyin, which carries different data-sharing terms. Douyin boasts 400 million daily users on the app.

What is ByteDance?

ByteDance is a Beijing-based tech startup that launched eight years ago in 2012. ByteDance acquired social media startup Musical.ly and combined it with Douyin, which was their previous core product, and merged it into a single application under the name TikTok.

Since the global lockdowns took hold, ByteDance’s valuation has surged to nearly US$100 billion in recent transactions on secondary markets. Founder Zhang Yiming has said that he anticipates 100,000 employees by the end of 2020. Competitor Tencent had a headcount of 62,000 at the end of 2019.

YouTube ready to compete

With the surge in popularity, according to people familiar with the matter, YouTube is planning to create ‘Shorts’, its answer to TikTok, as a feature in the Google-owned app by the end of the year.

Shorts will reportedly include a pool of brief clips posted by existing mobile app users. User videos will be enabled to feature songs from the licensed music catalog YouTube has.

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