The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that techno-giant Meta plans to lay off workers en masse as early as this week. According to the newspaper, the announcement will be made as early as Wednesday.
This wave of layoffs could be the biggest in the company’s 18-year history. It looks like it will be another round in the recent series of job cuts in the tech industry. In September, it was reported that Facebook, the parent company, intends to cut its costs by at least 10% over the next few months.
Most tech companies are trying to cut costs because companies that make money from selling advertising are looking to contain costs after the tech industry’s meteoric rise during the pandemic. Meta alone currently employs about 87,000 people.
During a third-quarter earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that job cuts could be coming soon. “In 2023, we will focus our investments on a small number of priority growth areas,” Zuckerberg said. “That means some teams will grow significantly, but most other teams will stay the same or shrink over the next year.” “Overall, we expect our organization to be about the same size or even slightly smaller than it is today by 2023,” he said.
On top of that, Meta stock has lost 73% since the beginning of this year. So it’s not surprising that they’re looking to cut costs. Especially other tech companies are doing the same thing. Last week, Twitter began layoffs that could affect as many as half its 3,700 employees. Snap, the parent company of the disappearing messaging app Snapchat, said in August that it was cutting about 20% of its staff.
