As a response to the economic downturn, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has announced a plan to fire tens of thousands of workers.
Similar action was taken by Elon Musk’s freshly bought Twitter, which last week unceremoniously let go approximately half of its 7,500 staff members.
As of September, Meta has over 87,000 workers working for it across all of its various platforms, including messaging service WhatsApp and the social media sites Facebook and Instagram.
In the third quarter, Meta’s profits dropped to $4.4 billion, a 52 percent decrease from the previous year. In response to the underwhelming results, the stock price of the company fell 25 percent in a single day.
The company’s market value has decreased to $600 billion in the last year.
Investors have expressed concern over Zuckerberg’s intention to commit significant amounts into establishing the metaverse in addition to its difficulties as an ad-supported company.
The Wall Street Journal said that a formal statement of the layoffs would be made on November 9, 2022, and that “many thousands” of Meta employees might be affected.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company’s headcount might actually decline by the end of 2023 in his remarks following Meta’s dismal third-quarter results.
The most recent intentions from Meta come after recent declarations by other tech companies to halt hiring or reduce their personnel as the sector battles economic headwinds.
However, Silicon Valley companies Stripe and Lyft announced significant layoffs on Thursday, and Amazon imposed a hiring freeze for its corporate offices.
Platforms that rely on advertising, like Facebook and Alphabet’s Google, are experiencing a decrease in advertising spending as a result of inflation and rising interest rates.
