Jobs Will Go, Teams will Shrink, and No Hirings: Zuckerberg Lays Out Grim Warning to Meta Staff

By Jacob J
September 30, 2022 13:57 +08

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Mark Zuckerberg has said that Meta is freezing hiring across the board and that more layoffs would happen in the future. "Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year. Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas," Zuckerberg said during an internal conference call with the employees.

In July as well, Zuckerberg had warned that Meta, the holding company of social media giants like Facebook and Instagram, was facing one of the worst downturns in its history and that job losses are certain in the near future. The Meta CEO said in uncertain terms there will be a scaling back of operations and employee departures owing to the tight financial squeeze the behemoth is facing.

IANS reported that Meta is trimming staff strength to cut costs. The plan is to reduce costs by at least 10 percent in the next few months. The process involves helping employees whose jobs have become redundant to get new positions within the company but to terminate them if they can't do so within a time frame.

According to the latest count, Meta has as many as 83,553 employees.

Tech Companies Trimming Jobs

With economic gloom catching up, several companies, especially, tech organizations, have either announced job cuts or frozen hiring.

Many Big Tech companies like LinkedIn, Meta, Oracle, Twitter, Nvidia, Snap, Uber, Spotify, Intel and Salesforce have either laid off employees or frozen hiring amid the global economic downturn.

Google executives have reportedly warned workers to either boost performance or prepare to leave. An internal message circulated among the employees warned that "there will be blood on the streets" if the next quarterly earnings are not good.

Shockingly, tech giant Apple laid off recruiters after warning earlier that an economic downturn was forcing a hiring freeze. Bloomberg News reported that as many as 100 contract workers have been fired, indicating the spending squeeze at the iPhone maker.

The development came two weeks after Apple reported record revenues in the quarter ended June 30.

In July, Microsoft laid off hundreds of employees ahead of its quarterly earnings and amid growing economic uncertainty. The move, the company said, was in a bid to "realign" groups and roles after the close of its fiscal year on June 30, even as the company intends to grow its headcount in the coming months.

Tesla said in June it was planning to axe 10 percent of staff, along with freezing hiring amid stalled Twitter deal, global macroeconomic conditions like chip shortage, rising inflation and high interest rates. Elon Musk had emailed Tesla executives, telling them the electric car-maker needs to pause hiring worldwide and cut its workforce by about 10 percent.

In early July, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg warned employees that the company was facing one of the worst downturns in its history and that job losses are certain in the near future. The CEO of the tech giant that owns social media companies Facebook and Instagram said in uncertain terms there will be a scaling back of operations and employee departures owing to the tight financial squeeze the behemoth is facing.

Chinese tech giant Tencent said last week it sacked a whopping 5,500 employees after the June quarter revenue dipped 3 percent, which was the company's first quarterly revenue slip after listing.

Earlier in March, Reuters had reported that Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings were preparing to cut tens of thousands of jobs combined this year.

Smartphone giant Xiaomi said last week it has cut more than 900 jobs as the Chinese economy is witnessing a slowdown. The smartphone giant had revealed that its revenues fell 20 percent in the June quarter. The layoffs affected nearly 3 per cent of Xiaomi's workforce, according to the South China Morning Post.

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