Facebook parent company Meta carried out its biggest ever layoffs last November, laying off around 11,000 workers. But other jobs, it seems, are about to be cut.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted in a Facebook job on February 1, “We closed last year with some tough layoffs and some team restructuring. When we did that, I made it clear that it was the start of our efficiency goal, not the end In an earnings call the same day, he announced that 2023 would be “year of efficiency.”
As Meta employees debate who will be deemed ineffective, the company has delayed finalizing budgets for several teams, according THE FinancialTimes. Employees who spoke to the British newspaper on condition of anonymity said company morale was low and little work was being done in some teams as they waited for unnaturally slow budget decisions.
Meta declined to comment when contacted by Fortune.
“Honestly, it’s still a mess,” an employee told the FT. “The year of efficiency begins with a group of people being paid to do nothing.”
Other workers told the newspaper that the next job cuts are expected next month.
Middle managers are right to be nervous.
“More proactive on cutting projects”
Zuckerberg wrote in his Facebook post, “We are working on flattening our organizational structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers be more productive. . As part of this, we’re going to be more proactive in reducing projects that aren’t performing or that may not be as critical anymore, but my primary focus is to increase efficiency in how we execute on our top priorities.
One of those priorities is the Metaverse, a largely unrealized virtual world that has disappointed users and could take years to pay off, if it ever does. The company’s metaverse division, Reality Labs, posted a loss of $13.7 billion for 2022, compared to a loss of $10.2 billion in 2021.
Investors tried to pressure Zuckerberg to reduce investment in the metaverse, to no avail.
In December, John Carmack, a pioneer of virtual reality, left his position as a high-level consultant at Meta, where he worked on the Metaverse. He tweeted out“I’ve always been quite frustrated with the way things are going at FB/Meta. Everything needed for spectacular success is there, but it’s not put together effectively.
The slowness with the metaverse and three consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue declines, however, are do not stop share buybacks in Meta. In its latest earnings statement, Meta said it increased its stock repurchase authorization by $40 billion, noting that last year it repurchased about $28 billion.
Many tech companies that have over-hired during the pandemic as demand for services has increased have carried out massive layoffs in recent months, leading to a feeling of conflicting headlines as the latest US jobs report shows that lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.
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