Large-scale layoffs are being prepared by Facebook parent Meta this week which is expected to affect many households of its workforce.
According to persons familiar with the situation, Meta Platforms Inc. plans to start widespread layoffs this week as part of a recent wave of IT job cuts following the sector’s explosive expansion during the pandemic. According to the persons acquainted with the situation, thousands of employees are anticipated to be laid off, and an announcement might be made as soon as Wednesday.
At the end of September, Meta stated that it employed more than 87,000 people. According to the persons, company managers have already instructed employees to postpone any non-essential travel starting this week.
The upcoming layoffs would be the organization’s first significant headcount cutbacks in its 18-year history. According to reports, the number of Meta employees who are anticipated to lose their jobs could be the most to date at a significant technology business in a year that has seen a retrenchment in the tech sector.
In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta intended to reduce costs by at least 10% in the upcoming months, including some personnel layoffs.
Following several months of more focused staffing reductions during which people were managed out of their positions or had their responsibilities abolished, the layoffs are anticipated to be disclosed this week.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Mark Zuckerberg told employees at a companywide meeting at the end of June.
As life and business migrated further online during the epidemic, Meta, like other tech behemoths, went on a hiring binge. In 2020 and 2021 combined, it hired more than 27,000 workers. In the first nine months of this year, it added a further 15,344 workers—roughly one-fourth of that during the most recent quarter.
Meta’s spokesperson declined the comment, referring to Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s recent statement that the company would “focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas.”
“So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” he said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on October 26.
“In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today,” he added.