Meta Platforms Inc plans to begin mass layoffs this week that will affect thousands of employees, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, following an announcement early Wednesday. The plan was made.
Facebook parent Meta had forecast a weak holiday quarter in October and significantly more spending next year that would wipe about $67 billion from Meta’s stock market value, adding to losses already this year. The price will increase by more than half a trillion dollars.
The pessimistic outlook comes as Meta contends with slowing global economic growth, competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the Metaverse and the ever-present threat of regulation. Is.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects the Metaverse investment to pay off in about a decade. Meanwhile, he had to hire, shutter projects and reorganize teams to cut costs.
“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investment on a small number of high-priority growth areas. This means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will remain flat or shrink next year. “Overall, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a smaller organization than we are today,” Zuckerberg said on the last earnings call in late October. .
The social media company cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30 percent in June, with Zuckerberg warning employees to brace for the economic downturn.
Meta shareholder Altimeter Capital Management previously said in an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg that the company needed to streamline by cutting jobs and capital spending, adding that Meta had lost investor confidence because It increased costs and diverted to the Metaverse.
Several technology companies, including Microsoft Corp., Twitter Inc. and Snap Inc., have cut jobs in recent months as global economic growth has slowed due to high interest rates, rising inflation and an energy crisis in Europe.
