TikTok joins the layoff trend

ByteDance's TikTok joined a spate of layoffs among technology companies by cutting about 60 jobs, mostly in its sales and advertising division.

The positions affected were based in Los Angeles, New York, Austin and overseas. The number is less than 1 percent of the company's roughly 7,000 staff in the US, and is one of the smaller cuts made recently by major tech firms.

Alphabet is laying off dozens of employees at its X moonshot division, shortly after eliminating hundreds of jobs at teams including hardware and Google Assistant recently. EBay is also cutting about 1,000 jobs, or 9 percent of full-time employees, while Tencent's (0700) Riot Games is slashing 530 jobs as "a necessity."

The app had 150 million American users as of March last year, and became the first non-game mobile app to generate US$10 billion (HK$78 billion) in consumer spending, according to app tracker data.ai.