Facebook’s parent company Meta is reportedly planning to begin large-scale lay-offs this week that will affect thousands of employees.
US media reported at the weekend that the job cuts could be announced as early as Wednesday.
During Meta’s disappointing third-quarter results, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said staffing might fall.
“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas,” he said.
Meta has about 87,000 employees worldwide across its different platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The plans for job cuts follow difficulties across the tech sector as the industry contends with slowing global economic growth.
Mr. Zuckerberg said he expected some teams to “stay flat or shrink” over the next year.
“In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today,” he said.
Ad-supported platforms such as Facebook and Alphabet’s Google are suffering from advertisers’ budget cuts as they struggle with inflation and rising interest rates.
Last Thursday, Silicon Valley firms Stripe and Lyft announced large-scale lay offs, while Amazon said it would freeze hiring in its corporate offices.
Twitter, since being acquired by Elon Musk, released about half of its 7,500 employees last week.
Not only is the global economic situation an issue for Meta, but there is also competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the metaverse, and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Mr. Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take about a decade to yield positive results.
In the meantime, he says he has to reorganize teams to trim costs.
In the social media company in June cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30%, with Mr. Zuckerberg warning employees to brace for an economic downturn.
Meta’s shareholder Altimeter Capital Management had previously said, in an open letter to Mr. Zuckerberg, that the company needs to streamline by cutting jobs and capital expenditure. It added that Meta has lost investor confidence as it ramped up spending and started focusing on the metaverse.
The company’s market value over the past year is down to $600bn (£524bn).
News Source: BBC
