Facebook-parent Meta is planning a fresh round of job cuts in a downsizing effort that could affect thousands of workers, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing Washington Post. In November last year, the social media giant had said it would let go of 13 per cent of its workforce or more than 11,000 employees.
The decision came as the tech behemoth grappled with soaring operating costs and a weak advertising market due to global slowdown and fears of recession.
Now, Meta is planning to push some leaders into lower-level roles without direct reports, flattening the layers of management between top boss Mark Zuckerberg and the company's interns, the Washington Post reported.
However, Meta communications head Andy Stone rejected the report and shared some news pieces in which CEO Zuckerberg had ruled out any new layoffs.
In the last few months, various tech majors like Google, Microsoft, and Twitter have resorted to job cuts to reduce costs. They all have said that they hired too many people during Covid but the demand had slowed down as the companies cut their spending in the wake of high-interest rates and rising costs.
Last year, Meta said it would also reduce office space, lower discretionary spending, and extend a hiring freeze into 2023 to rein in expenses.
On January 20, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced 12,000 job cuts at the company. This came just two days after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the tech major will reduce its workforce by 10,000 jobs through the end of FY23 Q3.
In a letter to employees, Nadella said the company saw customers accelerate their digital spending during the pandemic but now they were optimising their digital spending to do more with less. "We’re also seeing organizations in every industry and geography exercise caution as some parts of the world are in a recession and other parts are anticipating one."
Against this backdrop, Nadella said, Microsoft will align its cost structure with revenue and where it sees customer demand.