Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced that it would cut an additional 10.000 jobs and leave 5.000 job openings unfilled.
The news comes four months after CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that he was preparing to cut 11,000 jobs, which would affect 13% of his global workforce.
In a statement posted on his Facebook page and the Meta news blog, Zuckerberg said members of the company's recruiting teams will know by March 15 if they've been affected, with restructuring and layoffs within the next few months. Meta technology groups that are expected in April, and then their operations. groups at the end of May.
However, he added that in a small number of cases it could take until the end of the year to complete these changes, while the timelines for international teams will also be different.
Zuckerberg called these changes Meta's "year of efficiency," and in addition to laying off more than 20,000 employees and putting a recruiting hiatus, the CEO also said in his memo to employees that the company will "make our organization more flatter by removing multiple layers of management. »
Commenting on the current macroeconomic climate, Zuckerberg said the company must prepare for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years.
“Higher interest rates lead to a more nimble economy, greater geopolitical instability leads to greater volatility, and more regulation leads to slower growth and higher innovation costs,” he said. "Given this outlook, we will need to operate more efficiently than during our previous downsizing to ensure success."
The deficit metaverse remains a priority
The news comes six weeks after Meta published its fourth-quarter 2022 financial results, in which the company's Reality Labs division reported an operating loss of €13,72 billion for all of 2022. Not performing well or it may not be as crucial anymore,” Reality Labs said. The business, which is responsible for the development of Metaverse and hardware products like Quest headsets and AR glasses, predicts an even bigger loss in 2023.
“Our biggest investment is advancing AI and integrating it into every one of our products,” Zuckerberg said. “We have the infrastructure to do this on an unprecedented scale and I think the experiences that this will enable will be incredible. Our cutting-edge work to build the metaverse and shape the next generation of computing platforms also continues to play a key role in defining the future of social connection.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Meta said the expected impact of these layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, including restructuring costs, will be approximately €3 to €5. billion, for facility consolidation, severance and other personnel costs. costs
After a wave of tech layoffs last year, the trend continues in 2023, with tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, SAP and Salesforce announcing job cuts. Reasons given for the job cuts include geopolitical instability, rising interest rates and the need to cut staff as growth slows following pandemic-driven hiring, when demand for business services in the cloud and remotely has been shot.
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