Facebook’s freeze on hiring staff

FACEBOOK owner Meta has announced a freeze on hiring new staff amid plans to cut costs by at least 10 per cent in the coming months.

Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the social media giant, said the group would ‘further restructure’ due to its struggling advertising business. Meta, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, has lost nearly 60 per cent of its value in the past year.

Mr Zuckerberg’s personal fortune has nosedived to £44billion – just a third of what it was a year ago. He said Meta will ‘steadily reduce headcount growth’ over the next year. Plans to hire engineers are facing cuts of 30 per cent. The announcement comes as Meta makes a risky gamble on the ‘Metaverse’ - or virtual realm – which it predicts will drive billions of pounds in revenue.

But in the short term the company is struggling amid a global downturn and an increasingly likely recession. And many analysts remain deeply sceptical about the point of Metaverse itself. Mr Zuckerberg told a company-wide staff meeting: ‘I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilised by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has – so we want to plan somewhat conservatively.

‘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.’ Other tech giants have also scaled back their operations as Silicon Valley grapples with the prospect of a recession. Last month Google announced that it would freeze hiring and cut back on perks.

Apple and Microsoft have also announced hiring freezes.