Washington - TikTok might be facing intense scrutiny from the United States government due to concerns that the app may be spying on its users, but the Chinese-owned app continues to hire hundreds of US staff.
This is despite Donald Trump issuing two executive orders that may see the company forced to stop doing business in the US.
According to Business Insider, the share of job listings in TikTok's US offices as a proportion of all the openings available at the company has also increased slightly from 27.4% to 28%.
"TikTok seems to still be hiring at an impressive clip, I imagine they must be incredibly confident that they're not going anywhere. Trump pushing back the ban deadline probably reinforces this perception,“ said Brendan Gahan, partner and chief social officer at Mekanism, a US creative agency.
"At a time when unemployment is at an all-time high, TikTok is probably able to scoop up a lot of top-tier talent much easier than usual," said Gahan.
TikTok is staffing up in key areas that could be useful in an imminent battle with the Trump administration over the company's future. Many of the listings are for staff to join the company's trust and safety team, which has been tasked with proving the app does not harvest or handle data in ways that are different to other social platforms, and doesn't siphon off data to China, Business insider reported.
The company has said it plans to hire 10 000 employees in the US in the coming three years despite Trump's threatened ban, adding to its roughly 1 500 workers in the country, according to Business Insider.
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