ByteDance determined to tap into China’s online education market with 13,000 more employees

ByteDance, the Chinese social media titan, plans to hire an additional 13,000 employees to its education unit this year as the company aims to tap the country’s booming online learning market.

ByteDance, the owner of the short video app TikTok, said that it will hire 10,000 educational professionals, including tutors and course designers, in China over the next four months, according to a post published recently. The company will also hire at least 3,000 graduates this year as part of its expansion plan across 11 cities, it stated.

Dali

Its education arm, known as Dali, meaning “big force” in English, was established last year and offers everything from preschool programs to adult education and smart learning devices. The business had recruited more than 10,000 employees by October 2020. Chen Lin, ByteDance’s senior vice president, who previously headed the company’s flagship news app Toutiao, now leads the new venture.

Online education and educational technology has flourished in China in recent months as the pandemic has forced many to study remotely. The sector is estimated to have grown 35.5 percent to $39.7 billion in value in 2020, from the previous year, according to a report by market intelligence firm iResearch.

China’s online tutoring upstart Zuoyebang recently raised $1.6 billion from investors including Alibaba Group Holding while rival Yuanfudao is also seeking fresh funding.

ByteDance

ByteDance operates a range of content platforms that inform, educate and entertain people across languages, cultures and geographies.

The company has recently faced a lot of trouble with its short video sharing platform, TikTok. The app was banned in India last year as a retaliation to intense clashes between the Indian and Chinese soldiers at the Himalayan border. The app has also been a cause of concern for ByteDance in the United States where the Former President Donald Trump threatened to ban it because “it was sharing user data with the Chinese government”, he said.