San Francisco: Facebook Parent meta The Wall Street Journal reported that the platform plans to announce several rounds of additional layoffs in the coming months, which in total would equate to a 13 percent reduction in last year’s workforce.
The new cuts, the first wave of which is expected to be announced next week, are likely to hit non-engineering roles particularly hard, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is expected to shed some projects and teams along with these cuts.
Meta cut about 11,000 jobs last year, or about 13 percent of its workforce. The cuts are expected to reach a similar proportion to those this year, the people said, although the final count of cumulative cuts expected in the second quarter is not yet clear.
Among the projects being cut are some wearable devices that were being worked on by Reality Labs, Meta’s hardware and Metaverse division, the people said, suggesting a near-term retreat from efforts to popularize virtual and augmented reality products. Long-term research effort continues.
“We are continuing to look at the company in both the family of apps and Reality Labs, and really evaluate whether we are deploying our resources toward the highest leverage opportunities,” said Meta’s chief financial officer. susan lee said on Thursday at the Morgan Stanley 2023 Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. “This will result in us making some tough decisions to move resources from some teams to close projects in some places.”
According to the WSJ, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said that 2023 would be “the year of efficiency” at Meta and that some projects at the company are likely to be closed.
The continued cuts are notable considering Zuckerberg’s prediction in October that the company would end 2023 with roughly the same number of employees as it had at the time. The company laid off 13 percent of its workforce the following month, and then sought to encourage further reductions through a performance review process.
Technology companies including Amazon.com, Microsoft and others have cut thousands of jobs this year and profits from the pandemic-induced high have retreated. Through 2022, the number of layoffs is projected to reach nearly 300,000 workers, according to Layoffs.fyi, which is tracking job cuts in the industry.
The new cuts, the first wave of which is expected to be announced next week, are likely to hit non-engineering roles particularly hard, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is expected to shed some projects and teams along with these cuts.
Meta cut about 11,000 jobs last year, or about 13 percent of its workforce. The cuts are expected to reach a similar proportion to those this year, the people said, although the final count of cumulative cuts expected in the second quarter is not yet clear.
Among the projects being cut are some wearable devices that were being worked on by Reality Labs, Meta’s hardware and Metaverse division, the people said, suggesting a near-term retreat from efforts to popularize virtual and augmented reality products. Long-term research effort continues.
“We are continuing to look at the company in both the family of apps and Reality Labs, and really evaluate whether we are deploying our resources toward the highest leverage opportunities,” said Meta’s chief financial officer. susan lee said on Thursday at the Morgan Stanley 2023 Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. “This will result in us making some tough decisions to move resources from some teams to close projects in some places.”
According to the WSJ, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said that 2023 would be “the year of efficiency” at Meta and that some projects at the company are likely to be closed.
The continued cuts are notable considering Zuckerberg’s prediction in October that the company would end 2023 with roughly the same number of employees as it had at the time. The company laid off 13 percent of its workforce the following month, and then sought to encourage further reductions through a performance review process.
Technology companies including Amazon.com, Microsoft and others have cut thousands of jobs this year and profits from the pandemic-induced high have retreated. Through 2022, the number of layoffs is projected to reach nearly 300,000 workers, according to Layoffs.fyi, which is tracking job cuts in the industry.
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