Facebook parent company Meta is currently planning to lay off more of its workforce this week after a series of significant layoffs.
According to a Bloomberg report, the social media giant has been planning to trim its workforce, giving buyout packages to managers and cutting teams it deems nonessential. This move is still being finalized and could affect thousands of employees.
Meanwhile, current sources familiar with the company disclosed that the current job cuts have been driven by financial targets and are separate from the trimming. The incessant job cuts ongoing at Meta shouldn’t come as a surprise because the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had earlier given a hint on the events that would occur at the firm.
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During the last fall, he said, “we are restructuring teams to increase our efficiency, but these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go”.
In November, when Meta announced its first round of significant layoffs, which saw 11,000 of its employees impacted, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg via a video conference with staff members accepted responsibility for the job cuts. He admitted his error in the company’s rapid growth during the pandemic period.
Recall that he had earlier indicated that Meta would be concentrating this year on efforts intended to lower the company’s costs, which he described the year 2023 as the “year of efficiency”. He disclosed to analysts last month that Meta is focused on “cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be crucial”, and that it plans on removing layers of middle management to make the decisions faster.
The company has been communicating its theme for the year (year of efficiency) to employees during performance reviews, which were completed last week. Reports disclose that there is heightened anxiety and low morale among employees lately. Some expressed worry about whether they would receive their bonuses, which are set to be distributed this month if they lose their jobs beforehand.
The cost-cutting efforts are coming at a challenging time for Meta, which disclosed that its cost and expenses jumped 22% year-over-year to $25.8 billion during the fourth quarter while overall sales dropped 4% to $32 billion.
Meta, which has witnessed a decline in advertising revenue, has shifted focus to the virtual reality platform “Metaverse”, asking directors and vice presidents to make a list of employees that can be let go.
The company continues to invest heavily in developing the Metaverse, which it believes could represent the next frontier for mainstream computing. The company’s reality labs division which is tasked with building the virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed for the Metaverse brought in $727 million in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Meta has invested a staggering $100bn on metaverse research and development to date, $15bn in the past year alone with apparently little to show for it. The company however remains committed to advance the metaverse through a variety of areas, including Quest, mixed reality and the next generation of social experiences.