Meta META 2.11% in Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be among the largest round in a recent spate of tech job cuts after the industry’s rapid growth during the pandemic.
The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September. Company officials already told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week, the people said.
The planned layoffs would be the first broad head-count reductions to occur in the company’s 18-year history. While smaller on a percentage basis than the cuts at Twitter Inc. this past week, which hit about half of that company’s staff, the number of Meta employees expected to lose their jobs could be the largest to date at a major technology corporation in a year that has seen a tech industry retrenchment.
A spokesman for Meta declined to comment, referring The Wall Street Journal 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 Oct. 26. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
The Journal reported in September that Meta was planning to cut expenses by at least 10% in the coming months, in part through staff reductions.
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The cuts expected to be announced this week follow several months of more targeted staffing reductions in which employees were managed out or saw their roles eliminated.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Zuckerberg told employees at a companywide meeting at the end of June.
Meta, like other tech giants, went on a hiring spree during the pandemic as life and business shifted more online. It added more than 27,000 employees in 2020 and 2021, and added an additional 15,344 in the first nine months of this year—about a fourth of that in the most recent quarter.
Meta’s stock has fallen by more than 70% this year. The company has highlighted deteriorating macroeconomic trends, but investors have also been spooked by its high spending and threats to the company’s core social-media business. Growth for that business in many markets has stalled amid stiff competition from TikTok, and Apple Inc.’s requirement that users opt-in to the tracking of their devices has curtailed the ability of social-media platforms to target ads.
Last month, investment firm Altimeter Capital said in an open letter to Mr. Zuckerberg that Meta should slash staff and pare back its metaverse ambitions, reflecting the rising discontent among shareholders.
(World Street Journal)
