Facebook to axe another 10,000 staff
FACeBooK owner Meta will lay off 10,000 more staff as it further shrinks its headcount in a push for ‘efficiency’.
The fresh round of redundancies comes just months after the social network group axed a record 11,000 staff, taking its workforce from around 87,000 to 76,000 in november.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive, told staff yesterday that the second wave of cuts were part of a ‘year of efficiency’ as he seeks to boost financial and share price performance.
‘As I’ve talked about efficiency this year, I’ve said that part of our work will involve removing jobs – and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long term vision,’ Zuckerberg wrote.
‘I understand that this update may still feel surprising, so I’d like to lay out some broader context on our vision, our culture, and our operating philosophy.’
The firm, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, said the restructuring plans will focus on ‘flattening’ the organisation and pausing hiring plans.
Zuckerberg said Meta’s recruiting teams were likely to be hit as a result of these plans and will be told today about their fate.
The Silicon Valley titan expects to announce layoffs in tech groups in late April, and then business groups in late May, as the axe swings on low performing projects. overall, it will reduce headcount by around 10,000 and close around 5,000 open roles that it hasn’t yet hired for – meaning hundreds of jobs in the UK could be at risk.
The company’s headcount is likely to be somewhere around 66,000 worldwide following these fresh cuts. The stock has already rebounded by more than 50pc this year and shares surged another 7pc yesterday on the update. The company has struggled with growth over the last 12 months, in part due to rising competition from Tik Tok and the withdrawal of budget from stretched advertisers.
While Meta’s recent fourthquarter results were slightly more upbeat, parts of the business have proven less successful for the company, pushing 38-yearold Zuckerberg to ‘cut projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial’.
But it is not just Meta that is cutting jobs. Tech companies have been especially hard hit by layoffs after overhiring during the pandemic, when online companies boomed.
Google’s parent company Alphabet, plus Amazon and Microsoft, have all made significant layoffs in recent months.
Data tracker site Layoffs.fyi said 128,202 workers have been sacked so far this year, adding to the 161,411 laid off in 2022.
Victoria Scholar, analyst at broker Interactive Investor, said: ‘The pressures on the tech sector last year from weak economic growth, slowing ad revenues, sky-high inflation and rising interest rates all remain, suggesting that further tech sector job cuts could be on the cards.’