The social media giant is cutting 13 percent of its workforce. Meta’s market value has shrunk by more than 70 percent in a year.
The technology company Meta has announced that it will lay off workers for more than 11,000 employees (you switch to another service). The company is also launching an austerity program that applies to all but essential expenses. With a few exceptions, there are no plans to make new hires before next spring.
This is the first time that the company has undertaken extensive personnel cuts during its 18-year history.
In his message to his employees, Meta’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he takes responsibility for the decision and the reasons that led to it. According to Zuckerberg, the company grew too strongly during the pandemic.
of the Wall Street Journal (you will switch to another service) during the years 2020 and 2021, Meta hired a total of more than 27,000 employees. During this year, more than 15,000 new employees have joined Meta’s payroll. Today’s layoffs will reduce Meta’s personnel to around the level of the beginning of the year.
According to Zuckerberg, another reason for the big reduction is the general economic situation, which has shaken especially technology companies and their market values. Meta’s share price has fallen by more than 70 percent in a year.
Meta is by no means the only social media company that has had to downsize. At the beginning of autumn, Snapchat fired a fifth of its employees. Bought by Twitter last week Elon Musk fired half of the company’s employees for the first time.
The trend is still metaverse
According to Zuckerberg, the company that changed its name from Facebook to Meta last year is not changing its course. Zuckerberg says the company will focus its resources on growth areas, such as the content recommendation algorithm, advertising sales and metaverse.
In practice, this means that the company focuses on its Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp applications, as well as Reality Labs, which builds virtual glasses and environments.
So far, Meta has spent tens of billions of euros to build the metaverse. And the plans will continue to burn billions.
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The social giant building Metaversum has so far failed to convince its employees, users or investors of the new direction. At the same time, the company’s money sampo, i.e. the advertising machine, has begun to cough.
Last year, the tracking notice added to Apple’s applications has especially weakened Meta’s ability to target ads. This is reflected in reduced advertising revenue. Meta has estimated that Apple’s change will make a ten billion dollar dent in advertising revenue this year alone.
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