Bloomberg News reports that Meta Platforms Inc., the parent of Facebook, has been planning to start its operation of job cuts on Wednesday. This was revealed according to an individual familiar with the issue. The move comes as the social media stalwart has been losing revenue for some time now, and the earnings have been quite disappointing.
It is anticipated that the employees laid off will be intimidated starting Wednesday morning. The Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, had a conversation with these executives on Tuesday, preparing them for the job cuts. As per Wall Street Journal, Mark Zuckerberg held himself responsible for the “missteps” that the company had taken for such a scenario. However, no spokesperson was available for any response or comment.
Signal to Employees about Headcount Curtail
In late September, employees were warned by Zuckerberg that Meta has intentions of curbing expenses and restructuring teams. Menlo Park, which is in California based is also the owner of WhatsApp and Instagram, went on a spree of recruitment freeze. The CEO had also signaled that in 2023, the headcount would be much less than it is now.
A Wobbling Economy
These job cuts are being assessed and will impact 10% of the company. As per Insider, there were more than 87,000 employees as of September 30th this year. The reductions, which are a part of the first-ever major slash ever since Facebook was established in 2004, reflect a sharp slowdown in revenue related to digital advertising. The economy is now in the doldrums and is subjected to the recession, which is right around the corner.
Bloomberg News reports that Zuckerberg stated that this scenario is different from what the company and its members are used to working in. He expressed the same at a Q&A session in September while talking to the employees. He also said that right from the beginning, the company had grown every single year basically, but it is only of late that the earnings have remained flat for a considerable time. As such, adjustment is the only option left.
Meta’s layoffs come on close heels after Twitter Inc. laid off around 50% of the workforce after Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging site. However, Twitter Inc.’s layoffs were chaotic because many employees suddenly discovered that they were deboarded from the company’s software application Slack and could not access their emails.
Musk said it was necessary to take this step since the company had already lost revenues on the social media platform. But he also asked a few fired workers to resume work and return.
Snap Inc, the parent of Snapchat, a rival app, is planning to cut short the headcount announcing in August that it plans to reduce its employee strength by 20%.
