Key Points:

  • Facebook’s parent company, Meta is about to lay off thousands of employees. This would be the first noteworthy layoff event in the company’s history.
  • Many tech companies in the U.S. and different parts of the world have laid off a sizeable amount of their workforce as they believe a recession is just around the corner. 
  • Meta’s job cuts are rumored to start this week and will impact thousands of employees. 
  • Thus far, Meta has not commented on the subject. 

Thousands of Meta employees will lose their jobs in the upcoming days as the company plans to trim its workforce amid the fear of a recession. Besides, the shrinking business size coupled with huge losses incurred by the company because of its metaverse project. 

Meta has a workforce of over 87,000 employees as of a September SEC filing. That number is likely to go down in the next few days as Meta intends to terminate thousands of employees. 

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Meta’s core business sees decline – are layoffs the response?

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in a conference call last month discussed the company’s earnings in the third quarter. He said that he expects the company’s size to either remain the same or reduce slightly in 2023. 

So why is Meta planning to lay off its employees? This move is driven by tight advertiser budgets and noteworthy changes in Apple’s iOS privacy changes. These factors may have had a negative impact on Meta’s core business. Further, Meta also reported a revenue decline in the second quarter and that its profit has reduced by as much as 50% from last year. 

The visible decline in the company’s profits is predominantly because of billions of dollars being spent on the development of the metaverse. According to Zuckerberg, the metaverse will be the future of the internet and the company has no plans of slowing down. 

Here’s a fun fact for you. Meta’s capitalization was more than $1 trillion in 2021. Today, it is valued at $250 billion. 

Meta is not alone, tech companies are riding the layoff wave

Meta is not the only company that is thinking about laying off its staff. Stories have emerged that Twitter is expected to cut down 50% of its staff following the arrival of new owner Elon Musk. 

The tech industry, which was once regarded as untouchable has seen a remarkable shift. Multiple tech companies have announced job cuts and a hiring freeze in the last few months. Layoffs in the tech world seemed unlikely, especially because of the rapid growth it witnessed during the pandemic. 

Which companies have laid off their staff recently? Lyft has fired 13% of its workforce and Stripe has trimmed its staff by 14%. Amazon has said that it is freezing corporate hiring at the moment. 

Is recession here? Will we continue to see more layoffs in the next few weeks? Continue reading iTMunch to find out. 

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Feature Image Source: Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash