Tech Giant Meta to Announce Major Job Cuts This Wednesday

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, will launch a new round of redundancies this Wednesday.

The social network behemoth is reportedly preparing to make thousands of cuts to its policy, marketing and communications teams in particular, only months after laying off 11,000 staff in November.

This comes amid a peri0d of internal change at the top, with sales vice president for the Americas, Nada Stirratt, apparently leaving the post on Monday.

Chief Business Officer Marne Levine also stepped down last month.

One senior staffer told the Financial Times: ‘We have a real dilemma on our hands in terms of talent when there’s so much chaos.

‘ The company has struggled with growth over the last 12 months, in part due to rising competition from TikTok and the withdrawal of budget from stretched advertisers.

Competition saw Facebook’s app lose users for the first quarter in its lifetime a year ago, further deterring advertisers.

Founder, chairman and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has dubbed 2023 a ‘year of efficiency’ as the company looks to cut back on costs.

This will include pulling back from the company’s NFT offering.

A spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company will instead move towards products like Meta Pay and features that allow creators to earn money directly on Meta platforms.

While Meta’s fourth-quarter results boosted shares by 18%, some innovations have proven less successful for the company.

Reality Labs, responsible for virtual and augmented reality features, lost $13.7bn last year and are expected to face lay offs.

The resignation of Chief Business Officer Marne Levine last month will also send ripples through the company.

Levine held multiple leadership roles over a 13-year career at the company before announcing she would leave.

She will stay on until the summer as part of her handover.

The FT reported that VP of sales for the Americas, Nada Stirratt, also resigned yesterday.

The cuts to staff announced 9 November, totalling 13% of the workforce, come as part of a wider trend of layoffs across the sector.

Also in November 2022, Twitter laid off 3,700 staff – nearly half its workforce – as Elon Musk looked to model the website around a new ‘extremely hardcore’ culture following his $44bn takeover.

He said that he had no choice but to lay off about half the workforce when ‘the company is losing over $4mn a day’.

Marketing and communications functions were hit hard worldwide, with India’s entire marketing division laid off in the first round of cuts.

Stripe, a fintech firm, also announced it would cut 14% of its workforce at the end of last year.

Tech companies have been especially hard hit by tech layoffs after over-hiring during the move online through the pandemic.

Websites with models built on advertising were also more at risk when companies worldwide slashed advertising budgets to weather rising prices and interest rates.

Valuations of early stage tech companies were also inflated through the pandemic, plummeting in 2022 when interest rates rose and funding was pulled, leading to layoffs.