Meta is ready to dismiss another 10 jobs. After years of strong expansion, the downsizing of working groups in Silicon Valley continues. The new announcement from Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp – is part of a multi-stage downsizing plan that could stretch out for months and affect thousands of workers. Not only that: the company has also decided to "close around 5.000 open positions for which no recruitment has yet been made". The CEO said so Mark Zuckerberg in a letter sent to employees as part of its “year of efficiency” plan.
The new round of layoffs follows a previous round of cuts, announced at November, which involved over 11 workers, equal to approximately 13% of Meta's total workforce. But the downsizing plan pleases the market: the title di Meta gains more than 6% on Wall Street.
The Crisis of the Tech Industry: Mass Layoffs
Meta's downsizing comes at a chaotic time for the tech industry though, after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which targeted tech start-ups. It was the second largest bank failure in US history. The implosion kicked off a three-day saga in which start-up founders warned that if their funds were frozen, they would be unable to pay salaries or be forced to lay off. Although the crisis was averted thanks to theannouncement of the US government which would guarantee i risk deposits, the tech sector is still cutting tens of thousands of jobs. According to Layoffs.fyi, an online tracker of tech-sector layoffs, about 1.532 tech companies laid off 289.613 workers in 2022 and 2023. In addition to Meta, also Google e Amazon they reduced their workforce. Not to mention Twitter, whose workforce is about a quarter of what it was when Elon Musk bought the company last year and started making rotational layoffs.
Here are the Meta jobs that should be cut
During the Covid-19 pandemic, like many social media platforms, the Menlo Park company has hired too many employees and is now finding itself tightening its belt.
The cuts, which are expected to begin this week, will primarily affect factory workers at first division of reclutamento of Facebook's parent company. Over the next couple of months, organization leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our organizations, canceling low-priority projects, and reducing hiring rates, Zuckerberg said. With the reduction in hiring, I have made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team. Tomorrow we will notify members of the recruiting team of any consequences. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our technology groups in late April and then in our business groups in late May. In a limited number of cases, you may need to wait until the end of the year to complete these changes. Timelines for international teams will also be different and local managers will follow up with more details."
The era of the Silicon Valley "moonshot" is over
Like many internet platforms that make money from digital advertising, Meta is facing several economic challenges. Primarily, the intensification of competition where the competition increases by TikTok and the effects of the Apple iOs 2021 privacy update are weighing. In addition, some digital advertisers have reduced their spending on social media ads because inflation has created too much market volatility.
In addition to the layoffs, Meta is also planning to deflate the company hierarchy to reduce leadership levels between Zuckerberg and the interns. Among Meta's plans is to push some managers to fill roles without direct relationships. Susan Li, chief financial officer of Meta, told a Morgan Stanley technology conference last week that the company is continuing to evaluate how it is using resources, a process that is likely to lead to "tough decisions ” to close some projects and move resources from some teams. Li added that the company is also looking to streamline cross-functional teams and processes, as well as investing in automation to increase efficiency.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg's company continues to invest heavily in the development of the metaverse, which the same company believes could represent the next frontier of its business.
