Meta Platforms Inc plans to begin large-scale layoffs this week that will affect thousands of employees, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday citing people familiar with the matter, with an announcement already scheduled for Wednesday.
Meta declined to comment on the WSJ report.
Facebook mom Meta predicted a weak holiday quarter in October and significantly more costs next year, wiping out about $67 billion of Meta’s stock market value, adding to the more than half a trillion dollars in value already lost this year. .
The disappointing outlook comes as Meta faces slowing global economic growth, competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, worries about massive spending on the metaverse, and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take about a decade to pay off. In the meantime, he’s had to stop hiring, close projects and reorganize teams to cut costs.
“In 2023, we will focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas. That means some teams will grow significantly, but most of the other teams will remain flat or shrink over the next year. In total, we expect to end 2023 as about the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today,” Mark Zuckerberg said during the latest earnings call in late October.
The social media company had cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30% in June, with Mark Zuckerberg warning employees to prepare for an economic downturn.
Meta’s shareholder Altimeter Capital Management had previously said in an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg that the company needs to streamline by cutting jobs and capital expenditures, adding that Meta has lost investor confidence as it ramped up spending and turned to the metaverse.
Several tech companies, including Microsoft Corp, Twitter Inc and Snap Inc, have cut jobs and cut workforces in recent months as global economic growth slows due to higher interest rates, rising inflation and an energy crisis in Europe.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
Featured video of the day
Air quality in Delhi marginally better, curbs removed too quickly?