New York: Meta is planning additional job cuts over several rounds in the next few months, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
As per the report, this additional cuts would be roughly of the same magnitude as the 11,000 or 13 percent workforce layoffs last year. It further stated that cuts are expected to be announced next week and non-engineering roles are likely to be hard hit. Some projects and teams are also expected to be shot down.
Last year, Facebook parent Meta had said that it will let go of 13 percent of its workforce, or more than 11,000 employees, as part of a plan to reduce costs at the social-media platform following disappointing earnings, soaring costs, and a weak advertising market.
The news of layoffs has been going rounds since a month. Earlier in February, it was reported that the company was planning to let go thousands of workers. Washington Post had reported that the company was planning to push some leaders into lower-level roles without direct reports – essentially flattening the layers of management between top boss Mark Zuckerberg and the company’s interns. On 7 March, people familiar with the matter had told Bloomberg that the company is planning to cut thousands more jobs as soon as this week in its fresh round of layoffs.
As per the latest WSJ report, the reductions this year are expected to reach the same proportion of those who remain, the people said, though the final count of the cumulative cuts expected over the second quarter isn’t yet clear.
Among projects that will be cut are some wearable devices that were in the works at Reality Labs, Meta’s hardware and metaverse division, the people said, suggesting a near-term retreat from efforts to popularize virtual and augmented reality products even as longer-term research efforts continue, reported WSJ.
Meta shares rose by more than 2 per cent in after-hours trading after The Wall Street Journal reported the planned cuts.
“We’re continuing to look across the company, across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, and really evaluate are we deploying our resources toward the highest leverage opportunities,” Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said Thursday at the Morgan Stanley 2023 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference.
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg previously said that 2023 would be a “year of efficiency” at Meta and that some projects would likely shut down at the company.
The continuing cuts are notable given Zuckerberg’s prediction in October that the company would end 2023 with roughly as many employees as it had at that time.
The company sought to encourage further attrition through the performance review process, reported WSJ.
Technology companies including Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others have cut thousands of jobs this year and last as profits retreat from pandemic-induced highs. Since 2022, layoff tallies have reached nearly 300,000 workers, according to Layoffs.fyi, a site that is tracking job cuts in the industry.
