On Thursday, Facebook’s parent company Meta will announce further layoffs as part of a months-long downsizing and restructuring process that will ultimately result in the elimination of 10,000 positions.
There have been three waves of layoffs at Meta, the most recent of which occurred in May. There have been two prior waves of layoffs, the first in November when 11,000 people were affected and the second in December when another 10,000 people lost their jobs.
Reduced advertising income and a precipitous drop in stock price necessitated these terminations. It has been reported that an internal corporate memo stated that the company has informed managers to be ready to announce the retrenchments.
Meta: Company-Wide Layoffs Across Major Business Units
There will be layoffs across the board, including at Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Meta’s virtual reality development business Reality Labs, and Quest’s hardware division.
On Wednesday, Meta’s chief of human resources, Lori Goler, said in an internal message obtained by The Washington Post that the company will start telling individuals on its technical teams whose jobs were being terminated.
As part of its efforts to streamline operations, the social media behemoth Meta is preparing to unveil a “revised organizational structure,” reports said.
Massive Job Cuts: Round No. 3
The job cuts have not been disclosed publicly by Meta as of this writing, but according to reports, the third wave of layoffs was posted on a company message board on Wednesday night.
A representative from the company refused to comment on the message but directed to a blog post written by CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month. In the post, he talked about “restructurings and layoffs in our tech departments in late April.”
For the past three quarters, Meta’s revenue has dropped, and when the business publishes first-quarter profits next week, analysts expect another quarterly sales reduction.
If the tech giant achieves the upper end of its earlier sales projection of $26 billion to $28.5 billion, the company’s recent revenue downturn may come to a stop.
In the internal memo, Goler wrote, as quoted by The Washington Post:
“This will be a difficult time as we say goodbye to friends and colleagues who have contributed so much to Meta […] it will take time for everyone […] to process tomorrow’s news, and I know teams will show up for each other with compassion, support and care.”
The memo did not specify how many workers were at risk of losing their jobs, but a source who spoke to Vox said that as many as 4,000 positions could be lost.
Weak advertising marketplaces help explain why major tech firms have been forced to slash headcount.
Analysts at Truist Securities looked at data from marketing-technology firm Skai to examine first-quarter advertising spending and found that businesses wanted more for their money.
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