As TikTok continues to fight for its life in the U.S., the platform has today outlined the economic benefits that it’s delivered for the nation, with expanded data showing that TikTok exposure is connected to over 28 million American jobs.
As per TikTok:
“Today, Oxford Economics published a new report measuring the number of jobs benefited by TikTok. Over the last seven years, TikTok has become an indispensable platform for businesses all across the country, with 7.5 million businesses on the platform employing more than 28 million workers.”
According to the Oxford report, more than 3.1 million U.S. jobs now directly stem from TikTok, based on people either creating content for the platform, or managing TikTok accounts.
A further 1.6 million workers directly benefit from the app, with a total of 4.7 million full-time roles directly tied to TikTok usage.
The full 28 million figure is based on the people “employed in businesses which have TikTok business accounts.” So those 28 million are not reliant on TikTok, as such, but they do, at least in theory, glean some benefit from the app, expanding TikTok’s overall impact on the U.S. economy.
TikTok has further extrapolated this data into new, state-by-state summary sheets, showcasing the benefits for specific U.S. regions.
The idea of this is that TikTok supporters can use the data as evidence to press their local representatives on saving the app in the U.S.
Which is an approach that TikTok has been using for some time, in order to pressure the U.S. government to abandon its forced sell-off plans.
Though that’s largely academic now, as the TikTok sell off bill was approved last year, and went into law as of January 19th, 2025. President Trump has granted a 75-day extension to arrange a new deal for TikTok to be sold to a U.S. partner (which ends early next month), but the law has already been passed, after being voted on by the Senate.
So I’m not really sure how lobbying your local representative will help at this stage, but if you wanted to know the broader impact of TikTok on your region’s economy, now you can find out.
Though, really, this is somewhat skewed logic from TikTok, and a misdirection from the real concerns that have prompted U.S. officials to enforce a sell-off of the app.
As noted, for years now, TikTok has sought to pitch Americans on the benefits of the app, despite this aspect never being in question, and never being part of the concern surrounding the platform.
The actual concern is that TikTok is potentially being used to gather data on U.S. citizens, and sharing that with a foreign adversary (in China), and/or TikTok is disseminating pro-China material to a significant chunk of the American population.
We don’t know which is more pressing, as cybersecurity officials have kept their briefings on the app top secret. But something along these lines prompted elected representatives, in both the House and the Senate, the vote for a ban of TikTok, by a cumulative 431 to 83 count.
So it wasn’t close, the vast majority of U.S. officials were spooked enough by these closed door briefings to approve the TikTok sell off bill, by a massive margin.
And that has zero to do with how much the app contributes to the U.S. economy.
As such, I’m not sure what the aim of this new report is, but it does seem as though TikTok believes that it can still influence already settled U.S. policy, and change its fate.
Which it can’t. I mean, really, it probably only needs to send this report to Trump directly, who may be more enticed to fight for the app by all the dollar signs.
But outside of Trump, of those with his ear, it doesn’t really matter what anybody else thinks at this stage.
You can read the full Oxford Economics TikTok report here.
