• According to information obtained by Business Insider, TikTok and its owner want to hire hundreds of Chinese employees in 2023.
• Of the 1,089 approved H-1B hires in the U.S. for TikTok and ByteDance that fiscal year, 669 were from China.

TikTok did not hesitate to hire employees from China last year, even though US officials accused the app of posing a national security risk because its owner, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing.

Most of the nearly 1,000 non-U.S. employees TikTok and ByteDance sought to hire for their U.S. teams through H-1B visa applications between October 2022 and September 2023 were from China.

Companies use the H-1B program to hire foreign workers with job skills they say they cannot otherwise obtain from the existing U.S. workforce.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data obtained by Business Insider via Freedom, 669 of the 1,089 approved H-1B hires for TikTok and ByteDance in the past fiscal year were from China; This means a 50% increase compared to the previous year. Information Act request. The federal government’s fiscal year runs from October to September.

Of the 669 people approved, 14 were hired to work within TikTok. US Data Security Divisionor USDS, a division of the company dedicated to keeping U.S. user data out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and other actors the U.S. government considers foreign enemies. These roles included data science, fraud strategy, systems analysis and software engineering work.

While TikTok is by far ByteDance’s most popular app in the US, the company also operates other platforms, such as the Pinterest-like app Lemon8That some H-1B hires may have been assigned to work on.

TikTok and ByteDance’s 50% increase in approved H-1B applications for Chinese citizens compared to last year came despite U.S. Senator Tom Cotton expressing concern about “foreign individuals working at ByteDance and TikTok’s offices in California.”

“Given security concerns regarding TikTok and the company’s repeated statements about ‘US-based’ teams and data centers, having hundreds of foreign nationals working in these offices poses another potential threat,” Cotton said. wrote In a November 2022 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

TikTok and ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment.

Using the H-1B program to recruit talent from China is not unusual in itself. It was the second most common country of origin for H-1B visa applications among all companies in fiscal year 2023, according to data published by . USCIS. But TikTok and ByteDance’s H-1B recruiting efforts are over-indexed to China. While only 12% of all H-1B applications approved for fiscal year 2023 were for Chinese citizens, 61% of TikTok and ByteDance’s approved applications were for Chinese citizens.

India ranked second among countries where TikTok and ByteDance received H-1B approval in fiscal 2023, followed by Taiwan, Canada and Vietnam.

Why is TikTok recruiting talent from China?

TikTok has been under intense scrutiny for years due to its owner’s roots in China. US officials expressed concerns ByteDance may have to hand over TikTok’s US user data to the Chinese government to comply with the National Intelligence Act. Some worry that TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool to advance the CCP’s interests.

In April, Congress passed a decision. law This gave ByteDance a deadline to divest TikTok’s US assets. If it fails to do so, TikTok could be removed from US app stores in January. TikTok is challenging the law in court, but legal experts have previously told BI that this is the case. Doesn’t look promising for the company. President-elect Trump pledged on the campaign trail: “Never ban TikTok,” but ways to recover the app are limited.

TikTok has previously said it does not share information with the Chinese government and that its content moderation efforts are conducted by a US-based team “working independently of China.”

While it may not be politically advantageous for TikTok to hire talent from China, it does make sense given that the company works closely with its parent company, ByteDance.

Despite TikTok taking steps Underestimating its relationship with ChinaIts owner, ByteDance, continues to operate in the United States. Current and former TikTok employees He told BI in 2021 Final product decisions for TikTok are often made by ByteDance employees in Beijing, he said. And TikTok employees are being asked to abide by TikTok’s ‘core workplace values’Byte Styles“

The company also used TikTok’s Chinese sister app Douyin as a testing ground for features. I finally arrive at TikTok.. The company recently paired vendors who specialize in this field. e-commerce in china to its US partners who work with sellers and influencers on social shopping feature TikTok Shop. Many of the approved 2023 H-1B applications for Chinese citizens were for roles in e-commerce, including a content creator executive role focused on live shopping and software engineering roles tied to shopping ads.