New Delhi: Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. plans to begin widespread employee cuts on Wednesday as part of a cost-cutting strategy at the social-media behemoth following dismal profits and a dip in sales, The Business Standard reported citing sources.
Who declined to be named discussing personal information, employees who will be impacted will be informed starting on Wednesday morning, and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg spoke to executives on Tuesday to prepare them for the cuts.
Zuckerberg claimed responsibility for the company’s “missteps” during the executive call, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Late in September, Zuckerberg informed staff that Meta planned to reduce spending and reorganise teams. A recruiting freeze was established by the Menlo Park, California-based business, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. According to the CEO, Meta expects headcount to be lower in 2023 than it is this year.
According to Insider, the corporation, which employed more than 87,000 people as of September 30, is anticipated to lose around 10% of its workforce. The reductions, which are a part of the first significant budget cut since the founding of Facebook in 2004, are due to a sharp decline in digital advertising revenue, a shaky economy on the verge of a recession, and Zuckerberg’s significant investment in the metaverse, a speculative effort in virtual reality.
“This is obviously a different mode than we’re used to operating in,” Zuckerberg said in a Q&A session with employees in September. “For the first 18 years of the company, we basically grew quickly basically every year, and then more recently our revenue has been flat to slightly down for the first time. So we have to adjust.”
The layoffs at Meta come after those at Twitter Inc., which last week eliminated almost 50% of its personnel after selling itself to Elon Musk. Those layoffs were chaotic, and many workers discovered they were no longer employed when their access to Slack or email was suddenly shut off. Musk claimed that the actions were required to stop the social network’s losses. Later, he asked a few sacked employees to come back.
The parent company of the competing app Snapchat, Snap Inc., said in August that it will reduce its personnel by 20%.
