Meta is all set to conduct yet another round of layoffs that would impact 6000 jobs. This latest move is said to be part of their “Year of Efficiency” campaign, during which they plan to restructure the entire company to cut costs.
This time around, the employees were well aware of the impending layoff. In a blog post this March, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company plans to cut down 10000 jobs in April and May.
We expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5000 additional open roles that we haven’t hired yet.Meta Blog Post
Meta used to be a popular company among remote workers all over the world. But after their restructuring plans rolled in and the company decided to pause hiring, the remote workers have been affected the most. All remote position listings have been taken off job sites, every single one of them.
After focusing on cutting down tech roles in April, the third round of layoffs is expected to affect Meta’s business department.
The company had already eliminated 11,0000 jobs in November, bringing the total number of job cuts to a whopping 21000.
Overall, after the transition from Facebook to Meta, the company has dropped approximately a quarter of its total employees. The only silver lining here is this is all part of their restructuring program. Once that’s done, the company plans to resume hiring and transfers in each department.
The biggest benefit is obviously reduced costs and improved management. Zuckerberg also said that after those layoffs, things have gone much faster. However, there have been concerning consequences. For instance, employee morale has hit an all-time low with so many people losing their jobs out of the blue. The entire team is walking on eggshells, wondering if they’ll be next.
For some employees, losing a job also means losing their visa and healthcare benefits which further adds to their stress.
However, it seems to be working out quite well for Meta on the business front. The company invested about $13.7 million last year in Reality Labs, the department overlooking Metaverse. While the investors were worried about making such a huge investment in a new project amidst mass layoffs, Zuckerberg decided to go forward with it.
This move could have been a strategy to show that they are still very much focused on Metaverse. After all, once the initial hype died down, there haven’t been enough talks about it.
In fact, in the quarterly earnings call last month Zuckerberg himself addressed the issue and said that Meta is still very much invested in AI and Metaverse and will continue to be so.
Speaking of the layoffs, this is supposed to be the last round of job cuts as per Meta’s earlier plans. However, the team wasn’t available for comment. But considering how volatile the tech industry has been in the last few months, it’s hard to guarantee what comes next.
