The Facebook group feels the reluctance of advertisers who pay more attention to their money.
(Photo: Reuters)
New York,London The Facebook parent Meta wants to cut 10,000 jobs in a second wave of layoffs. “We anticipate reducing our team by approximately 10,000 people and closing approximately 5,000 additional open positions that we have not yet filled,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement to employees on Tuesday. The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal had previously reported on possible cuts.
Just four months ago, Meta had already announced the layoff of 11,000 employees. Zuckerberg had proclaimed 2023 the “Year of Efficiency” and said he wanted to reduce costs by five billion to between $89 and $95 billion. Meta’s shares are up nearly 2 percent in premarket trading on Wall Street.
According to Meta, other online giants such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft have also cut thousands of jobs in the past few months – after hiring new employees on a large scale during the boom for their business in the corona pandemic. The Facebook group is now the first of them to herald a second major round of layoffs.
During the pandemic, many small businesses turned to Facebook advertising to boost their business. Meta made good money and also hired heavily. At the end of 2019, the group had 45,000 employees, at the time of the job cuts in November 2022 there were over 87,000.
Meta senses the reluctance of advertisers who are more careful with their money. Also, the Tiktok app is a strong rival in the fight for advertising dollars – and Apple’s privacy protections on the iPhone made ads on Facebook less efficient.
At the same time, Zuckerberg is investing many billions in the development of virtual “metaverse” worlds. Last year alone, the corresponding Reality Labs division posted an operating loss of a good 13.7 billion dollars (currently 12.78 billion euros).
The Financial Times wrote that the areas of politics, marketing and communications should be hit harder than others by the next round of layoffs.
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