Meta plans major job cuts that could affect “thousands” of workers. Sources familiar with the situation said the layoffs could begin as early as Wednesday.
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported that it employed more than 87,000 employees at the end of September, but these large-scale layoffs are expected to cut a significant portion of staff members.
The layoffs could hit Meta even harder than Twitter’s massive job cuts, which affected about half of the company’s 7,500-strong workforce.
In June, Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, warned employees of “difficult times ahead,” noting that workers must “execute flawlessly in a slower-growth environment.”
Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, at the same time began to “heat” the employees, saying in an internal question and answer session that “there are probably a group of people in the company that should not be here.”
Although Zuckerberg says Facebook has more active users than ever before, investors are still worried about the company’s expensive exposure to the metaverse.
Meta’s virtual reality division lost more than 3.7 billion euros ($3.7 billion) in the quarter it left behind and a total of more than 9.4 billion euros ($9.4 billion) in total this year, while the company’s shares are trading at the lowest price since 2016.