It has emerged that Meta intends to retrench staff in the face of growing fears of recession. The multinational technology conglomerate, according to the Wall Street Journal, plans to start the layoff process as early as this week which is expected to affect thousands of works.
With a workforce of more than 87,000, according to September SEC filing, the job cuts are designed to cut cost of operation as the business continues to shrink.
Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer, said, on a conference call last month, that he expects the company to end 2023 “as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
“The possible cuts come as tightened advertiser budgets and Apple’s iOS privacy changes have weighed on Meta’s core business. The company last month posted its second quarterly revenue decline and reported that its profit was cut in half from the prior year. The drop in profitability is largely driven by the billions Meta is spending to build a future version of the internet called the metaverse that likely remains years away,” CNN’s Catherine Thorbecke reports.
Meta is currently valued at around $250 billion despite recording a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion last year.
Major tech companies have been reviewing their staffing with majority either fairing or cutting pay. For instance, last week, rideshare company Lyft said it was firing 13per cent of its employees; payment-processing firm Stripe announced that it was axing 14per cent of its staff; e-commerce giant Amazon said it was “implementing a pause on corporate hiring.”
Equally, social media network Twitter has made “sweeping cuts” across the company weeks after the dramatic takeover by American billionaire Elon Musk.
