After Twitter, Meta prepares for massive layoffs this week

The massive layoffs saga continues as the social media company Meta joins the list of companies who are planning to reduce their workforce amidst the global economic slowdown. In a bid to scale down the workforce, the social media company is planning for massive layoffs in key areas this week. Meta, which is the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, has as many as 87,000 employees globally.

A global media firm cited sources saying that the layoffs will begin as soon as Wednesday this week and that the company has told its employees to cancel non-essential travel. In September, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, had said that in 2023 the workforce of Meta will be smaller.

The Meta workforce in India is also likely to have a significant impact following the layoffs, as the company has largest customer base of more than 200 million users.

The development comes days after the company posted weak quarterly results. Weighed down by weak September quarter earnings, the stock has lost $80 billion in market valuation. In the third quarter of FY23, the company’s profit more than halved to $4.4 billion as compared to $9.2 billion in the same period year-ago. The company’s also witnessed a contraction of its sales by 4% in the July to September quarter this year. However, the company reported its revenue from operations at ₹27.7 billion. Meanwhile, the company’s shares have plummeted 73% so far this year.

Global Layoffs

Over the past few months, the global tech landscape has witnessed massive layoffs and a hiring freeze amidst a looming global recession. Last week, the social media platform Twitter, which is recently acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, sacked 50% of its workforce.

The company, which is now under the reins of Musk, has also sacked Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal, top management, and its entire board.

In October, the software major Microsoft had fired as many as 1,000 employees, or 1%, in the third round of downsizing since July. The software major currently has a workforce of 1,80,000 employees.

Intel, which is one of the world’s largest chip makers, is also planning for targeted layoffs in November, according to news reports. Though the company has not announced its plans for layoffs officially, the reports cite sources saying that the company will announce layoffs at the third-quarter earnings meeting this month. If layoffs happen, this will be the chipmakers’ first major layoff since April 2016, when the company laid off as many as 12,000 employees.

Meanwhile, the e-commerce giant Amazon has publicly announced freezing hiring in its workforce saying that the company is dealing with an “unusual macro-economic environment.” However, the company intends to hire a “meaningful number of people” according to a blog post by Beth Galetti, who is Amazon’s senior vice president of People Experience and Technology.

Among others, Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, announced in August that the company will be laying off 20% of its workforce to restructure its business.