Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, TikTok is a social media platform that enables the creation, sharing and discovering of short videos. Owned by Chinese company, ByteDance, TikTok is the world’s fastest growing social media app with more than 2billion downloads since its founding in 2016. In Ireland, TikTok established in 2020 and currently employs over 3,000 staff across a range of business functions including Trust and Safety; Data Protection and Privacy; and SMB (Small and Medium Business) Europe.

Following a period of extremely rapid growth over the last 3-4 years, TikTok has confirmed that it is implementing a redesign of its global Training and Quality function to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of its quality assurance processes. Involving a re-build of the Training and Quality team from the ground up, global job losses of up to 600-700 across EMEA, Americas & APAC are anticipated. The exact impact on Dublin is not known but it could be in the region of 200-300 jobs. This higher Dublin-number is reflective of the high level of Training and Quality roles based here.

My, and Government's immediate concerns are for the workers impacted and their families. To that end, all the appropriate supports across Government are at the disposal of those who may be made redundant. Once the consultation period is completed, IDA's immediate priority will be to develop an understanding of the impacted roles, and to make its global teams aware of available skills that may be in demand elsewhere to help facilitate impacted workers secure new employment opportunities. IDA will also ensure that for all roles that are retained, where strategic training is required, IDA support is made available to the company. In this regard, TikTok is fully briefed on IDA’s suite of transformation/ training supports.

I might add that the company has indicated that this decision is not driven by cost, or any issue specific to Ireland’s operating environment, rather a business decision by the company to optimise and re-design a critical part of its business. The decision has no impact on TikTok’s other business units, and the company is continuing to hire in Dublin where it has 180 open roles currently – thus the net impact on the overall employee numbers could transpire to be significantly less than first announced. Furthermore, TikTok has grown rapidly since inception and a reorganisation of this nature is not an unexpected business development as the company seeks to optimise its structure.

IDA will continue to keep in close contact with TikTok's leadership teams, and the protocol with all redundancy situations involving IDA client companies includes the IDA working with the company concerned to define skills profiles of impacted employees and to match those with existing and target client company skills requirements. My officials will remain engaged with IDA on the situation as the restructuring is implemented.

Finally, as regards the Tech Sector generally, there is still high demand for tech, marketing and other skills across all sectors. In recent months we have continued to witness a number of significant redundancy announcements from FDI tech clients based in Ireland, but these are not unexpected as the sector adjusts to evolving global market dynamics. They certainly reflect job losses across a number of key employers in the tech sector, as companies have had to recalibrate after periods of sustained hiring and growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is important to note that the technology base in Ireland, which has been building for over 40 years, will continue to grow, especially as technology is pervasive across all sectors, and there are many growth opportunities in emerging sectors, particularly in AI, robotics and cybersecurity. In addition, and while never complacent, despite recent redundancy announcements, job creation in IDA supported companies, as well as those supported by EI and the LEOs, remains strong.