ByteDance is laying off more than 1,000 staff from its edtech businesses following the deep cuts it made in the sector in August. The newer round is concentrated in the K-9 education units, a person with knowledge of the matter told TechNode. The person declined to be identified.
Why it matters: TikTok owner ByteDance is the latest Chinese tech giant to retreat from online tutoring services targeting students up to grade nine, or K-9. All are responding to China’s crackdown on private tutoring services in late July.
- The current layoff comes only three months afters job cuts in August.
Details: The layoffs will affect more than 1,000 employees. The source said ByteDance is mainly cutting in business units that offer after-school tutoring services for primary and middle school curriculum courses. This once lucrative sector is now fast downsizing.
- ByteDance’s after-school tutoring services for K-9 students include pre-K education platform Guagua Long and online course livestream apps Qingbei and Xuelang.
- Local media LatePost (in Chinese) reported Wednesday that this round of layoffs also affects core teams in product development, operations, and research and development. In contrast, in August, ByteDance laid off edtech workers mostly in supporting teams such as sales and tutoring.
- ByteDance staff on English tutoring platform Kaiyan, education hardware teams, and school collaboration teams were also affected in this round of job cuts, LatePost reported.
- The company’s edtech business has cut roughly a third of its headcount from 15,000 at the beginning of this year to fewer than 10,000 now, according to Late Post.
Context: Over the past two months, China’s top private education companies TAL, Gaotu Techedu, and Koolearn Tech have announced plans to stop offering curriculum tutoring services to students in K-9 grades in response to China’s broad ban on private tutoring services in late July.