Meta’s workforce is already reduced by around 21,000 employees in the last six months.
American tech major Meta will reportedly begin its third round of mass layoffs as soon as today. According to a report by Vox, the move will impact around 4,000 employees in the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp.
Citing an internal memo, Vox reported that Meta informed its employees that the job elimination will begin Wednesday and technical teams including those working on Facebook, Instagram, Reality Labs, and WhatsApp will be widely impacted. The affected employees in North America will be informed via email between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. PT (or 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. IST), said Lori Goler, Meta’s head of people and as reported by Vox.
Additionally, the timelines may be different for different countries, and some countries may not even be impacted. The company has asked its employees in the North American office to work from home, if possible, on Wednesday to give people “space to process the news.”
Prior to this Mark Zuckerberg-led company announced its second round of mass layoffs last month and said to reduce the team size by around 10,000 employees. Additionally, Meta then said to cancel lower priority projects, reduce its hiring rates, and added that restructurings and layoffs in its tech groups will be announced in late April followed by business groups in late May. The tech giant announced its first round of job cuts in November last year and laid off more than 11,000 employees, or almost 13% of its workforce at the time. Meta then announced to also freeze new hiring.
Calling 2023 “the year of efficiency,” Zuckerberg said in February to bring the company’s costs under control in order to improve business performance given “the new economic reality.” He warned that the new economic reality could continue for many years.
Not just Meta, several tech companies including Sundar Pichai-led Alphabet, Elon Musk-led Twitter, and Satya Nadella-led Microsoft, among others, are laying off thousands of employees in an attempt to gear up for a global economic slowdown. In a nutshell, a setback in consumer spending due to high inflation and interest rates along with the threat of a looming recession this year has pushed corporates to keep a lid on their spending.
