Meta will begin large-scale layoffs this week, according to people familiar with the matter, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
“The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people,” WSJ said.
Meta officials have already notifies employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week, the people told WSJ.
This is the “first broad head-count reductions” to happen in Meta’s 18-year history.
According to WSJ, a spokesman for Meta declined to comment, referring to Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s recent statement that the company would “focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas.”
“So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” Zuckerberg said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on October 26, adding that “in aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organisation than we are today.”
Moreover, WSJ had previously reported in September that Meta was planning to cut expenses by at least 10 percent in the coming months, in part through staff reductions.
“The cuts expected to be announced this week follow several months of more targeted staffing reductions in which employees were managed out or saw their roles eliminated,” the report said.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg told employees at a companywide meeting at the end of June.
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