As the will-it-won’t-it vibe around the potential TikTok ban continues, with Donald Trump saying he’ll “probably” extend owner ByteDance‘s deadline to divest, the platform is highlighting its contribution to the U.S. economy.
Oxford Economics is an advisory/analytics firm that regularly publishes reports on the creator industry’s financial impact. It’s looked at both YouTube and TikTok in the past, and now is revisiting TikTok to reveal it believes that “over the last seven years, TikTok has become an indispensable platform for businesses all across the country.”
In its report, ‘Measuring the Number of Jobs that benefit from US Businesses using TikTok,’ Oxford Economics estimates 4.7 million U.S. jobs “benefit from utilizing TikTok.”
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It says those benefitting include over 3.1 million jobs directly using TikTok in their work by creating content or managing businesses’ accounts, plus more than 1.6 million workers who indirectly benefit from TikTok “in areas like lead generation for sales teams, customer engagement for marketing, or product teams examining user feedback on the platform.”
The report overall estimates that 7.5 million businesses “leverage TikTok’s features,” Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s President of Global Business Solutions, said in a statement. These 7.5 million businesses employ around ~28 million people collectively.
Around three-quarters of these businesses–both large and small–told Oxford Economics that using TikTok has allowed them to scale their operations. This is similar to what Oxford Economics found in its most recent YouTube report: that “84% of [small businesses] with a YouTube channel agree that YouTube played a role in helping them grow their customer base by reaching new audiences.”
YouTube’s report showed it contributed over $45 billion to the U.S.’s GDP in 2023, and supported the equivalent of 430,000 full-time jobs; meanwhile, Oxford Economics’ last report on TikTok estimated it contributed $24 billion, and supported 224,000 jobs.
This latest report doesn’t offer new numbers on that front. Instead, Oxford Economics’ goal was to focus on how many jobs in small, midsize, and large businesses are potentially benefiting from TikTok’s existence in the U.S.
We’re not surprised that’s the tack the firm is taking–and nor are we surprised that TikTok is pretty keen to advertise Oxford Economics’ findings. In discussions around the TikTok ban, the potential impact on creators has been a major concern. But increasingly, thanks to the growth of TikTok Shop and the sheer number of small businesses making hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the platform, the conversation has also touched on what a ban could do to American businesses relying on TikTok for sales and/or advertising.
“We started in September 2016 with nothing but a small food stand in a local flea market—just me, my husband, and two employees,” Vanessa Barreat, owner of La Vecindad restaurant in Las Vegas, told TikTok. “Today, we have 60 employees, two locations, and a thriving community of customers who found us through TikTok. Dozens of families now rely on La Vecindad, and we can even send our children to college—something we once only dreamed of.”
Alex Bellman, COO of Bellman Jewelers in Manchester, N.H., added, “TikTok was one of the major factors that helped us triple our business. Because of TikTok, we had to hire eight new employees and are now opening a second location in Boston. Without this platform, we’d have to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to try to compete with larger brands. It’s helped level the playing field for small businesses like ours.”
Putting these kinds of case studies forward might help TikTok convince the Trump administration that its economic benefits outweigh any potential national security issues. Key word: might.
Either way, though, it is interesting to have third-party data showing just how much TikTok potentially contributes to the U.S. economy. And while it’s not contributing quite as much as YouTube yet, if TikTok Shop continues to grow at an exponential rate, we might see Oxford Economics’ estimates for YouTube and TikTok’s 2025 bring the two closer together.
