Chinese tech giant ByteDance, owner of short-video app TikTok, has revealed a major restructuring of its business, the first major change since the company’s founder stepped back in May, reports the Financial Times. The move comes after Beijing’s crackdowns on the online education and gaming sectors have hit the company’s investments outlook and new requirements for internet companies to open up have cast doubts over their e-commerce ambitions.
Acting chief executive Liang Rubo, who will officially take over from founder Zhang Yiming in December, announced that the internet company would split into six business units, including content creation, education and gaming. Chief financial officer Shou Zi Chew, who joined ByteDance in March, will now give up that job and focus solely on overseeing TikTok. Chew became TikTok’s chief in May and had been splitting time between the two roles.
The restructuring comes a day after ByteDance introduced new policies on shorter working hours, in an attempt to improve employee welfare. China-based employees were told that they should only work from 10am to 7pm on weekdays and would need to seek approval to stay in the office beyond those hours, also doing away with a policy requiring employees to work weekend overtime starting in August.
Tech companies’ tough work hours, known as the “996” because employees were expected to be in the office from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, have come under increased scrutiny this year following public outcry over work-related deaths.
