A meta spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. plans to begin a sweeping job cut on Wednesday as part of a plan to cut costs at the social media giant after disappointing earnings and slumped sales, according to people familiar with the matter.
Affected employees will be notified starting Wednesday morning, and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg spoke to executives Tuesday to prepare them for the cuts, the people, who asked not to be identified to discuss private information, said. According to the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg said he was responsible for the company’s “missteps.”
A meta spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zuckerberg warned employees in late September that Meta plans to cut costs and restructure teams. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has implemented a hiring freeze, and the CEO said Meta expects headcount in 2023 to be fewer than it is this year.
The cuts are expected to affect about 10% of the company, which employed more than 87,000 people as of Sept. 30, according to insiders. The cuts, part of the first major budget cut since Facebook’s founding in 2004, reflect a sharp decline in digital advertising revenue, an economy teetering on the brink of recession, and Zuckerberg’s heavy investment in a speculative virtual reality venture called the Metaverse.
“It’s obviously a different mode than what we’re used to,” Zuckerberg said in a Q&A with employees in September. “For the company’s first 18 years, we’ve basically grown rapidly every year, and recently, for the first time, our revenue has been flat to slightly declining. So we have to adapt.”
The job cuts at Meta follow cuts at Twitter Inc. last week, which saw the company cut about 50% of its workforce after selling it to Elon Musk. Those layoffs were messy, and many employees found they had lost their jobs when they were suddenly cut off from Slack or email. Musk said the steps were necessary to stem losses on the social network. He later asked some laid-off workers to return.
Snap Inc., parent company of rival app Snapchat, is also downsizing, saying in August it would cut 20% of its workforce.
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