BENGALURU | KOLKATA: ByteDance has frozen hiring and reassigned some senior management roles in India amid people leaving or looking to exit the Chinese company following the ban on its TikTok and Helo apps, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Some are said to be worried about any stigma that might get attached to working for a Chinese company, following border clashes.

The company, which has 2,000 employees in India, is trying to hold on to staff amid discussions of a sale of TikTok with Microsoft and Twitter. It has even initiated a performance review cycle to portray a sense of stability to employees. No formal layoffs are taking place and the company has emphasised to employees, through internal communications, that the situation is stable, the people said. ByteDance didn’t respond to queries.

“We’ve had at least 5-6 senior professionals from Bytedance reach out to us,” said Anuj Roy, managing partner at executive search firm Fidius Advisory. “This includes individuals who had joined the company even a few months ago. A lot of senior-level hiring happened at ByteDance over the last year or so.”