Meta boss is planning fresh bloodbath of non-engineering staff
Zuck swings the ax AGAIN! Meta boss is planning fresh bloodbath of non-engineering staff, with other workers at Facebook and Instagram set to be demoted just three months after promising no more layoffs
- It comes after the company faced a backlash for following in the footsteps of Twitter CEO Elon Musk for a paid subscription
- Zuckerberg previously told employees that he ‘didn’t anticipate more layoffs’ after thousands of jobs were cuts in November
- Despite introducing drastic cost-cutting measures as part of his ‘year of efficiency’, the CEO has also beefed up his security bill by an extra $4 million
Meta is planning to cull thousands of jobs and reorganize their top management structure – despite promising no more layoffs just three months ago.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning on culling HR roles, as well as lawyers, financial experts and top executives. Those working in engineering roles are said to be safest.
The Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp parent company is planning to push some leaders into lower level roles, reducing the layers of management between Zuckerberg and company interns.
Insiders say that Meta is expecting some employees whose jobs have been demoted to quit as a result – which would further pare back the tech firm’s workforce.
Earlier this month Zuckerberg said that 2023 would be the year of ‘efficiency’, when announcing cuts at Facebook and Instagram.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning on culling HR roles, as well as lawyers, financial experts and top executives
Earlier this month Zuckerberg said that 2023 would be the year of ‘efficiency’, when announcing cuts at Facebook and Instagram
Zuckerberg told investors at the meeting: ‘We closed last year with some difficult layoffs and restructuring some teams.
‘When we did this, I said clearly that this was the beginning of our focus on efficiency and not the end.’
A source told the Washington Post that managers might end up overseeing a higher number of employees as their teams grow.
The company is also considering slashing projects and jobs to target divisions across the company and around the world.
A date has not been given for the cuts, but they are expected to roll out in the coming months.
Nicola Mendelsohn and Justin Osofsky have been given additional remits as a result of the upcoming departure of business officer Marne Levine this summer
The new cull comes just three months after the firm fired 11,000 people – with recruitment and business teams facing the major losses.
At the time the CEO told workers that he ‘didn’t anticipate more layoffs’ after the cuts in November, adding that the slashing of jobs was to ‘minimize the chance of having to do broad layoffs like this for the foreseeable future.’
Mark Zuckerberg has dubbed 2023 the ‘year of efficiency’, however one area he is not looking to make cuts to is his personal security bill – said to be increasing by at least $4 million this year
Meta previously laid off around 10 percent of its workforce last year, and recent moves indicate more mass firings are on the way
Nicola Mendelsohn (right) and Justin Osofsky (left) have been given additional remits as a result of the upcoming departure of business officer Marne Levine this summer
He said: ‘I obviously can’t sit here and promise you that nothing will happen in the future because it’s a very volatile environment.
‘But what I can say is that for where we are right now, that’s what I foresee.’
It comes after he gave around 10 percent of its employees poor job performance ratings in a recent round of reviews.
The company’s preparations to fire thousands more employees comes as ‘tech wreck’ has swept Silicon Valley following a post-pandemic financial dip.
Despite making drastic cost-cutting measures in several areas of his company, Zuckerberg has also invested an extra $4 million to beef up his personal security.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has made several cost-cutting measures to save its failing bottom line, with its high-paid tech executives also set to see their bonuses slashed.
Marne Levine, vice president of global partnerships and business development at Meta is set to leave in the summer
Meta announced that it would soon be charging social media users a monthly subscription fee to be verified on Facebook and Instagram
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning another round of ‘large-scale layoffs’ – following the first in the company’s history at the end of last year
WHAT IS ‘META VERIFIED’?
‘Meta Verified’ is the new subscription service available to Facebook and Instagram users being rolled out as of this week.
Those who sign up will receive a ‘blue tick’ of verification on their profile. along with other benefits like ‘direct access to customer support’ and ‘extra impersonation protection’.
This will cost $11.99 (£9.97) each month to use on most internet-enabled devices, but $14.99 (£12.47) each month for use on iOS devices like iPhones and iPads.
The mass layoffs come after Meta nearly doubled its staff numbers from 2019 to 2022 to over 86,000 amid increased tech usage during the pandemic.
But large sections of Meta’s employees are now set to be culled, as the company suffers from slowing ad revenue and expensive investment in the ‘metaverse’.
According to Nasdaq, the firm has seen an operating loss of almost $24 billion in the last two years due to its metaverse spending.
This has led Zuckerberg to introduce his ‘efficiency’ drive to turn around Meta’s plummeting revenue, said to have slashed $80 billion from its value last year alone.
They were also hit with a huge backlash after announcing that they were rolling out a new paid verification subscription service called Meta Verified.
Coming soon, for $11.99/month on web and $14.99/month on iOs, users on Instagram and Facebook will be able to pay to become verified users, which will entail, among other things, a blue verification badge.
The service will first be introduced in New Zealand and Australia this year, and will be available in other nations ‘soon,’.’
Among Zuckerberg’s latest moves are to remove middle management to ‘flatten’ Meta’s structure and increase productivity by introducing AI into its workforce.
The firm has seen an operating loss of almost $24 billion in the last two years due to its metaverse spending
Zuckerberg will want to avoid the backlash faced by Elon Musk over his brutal Twitter layoffs
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s CEO, said the firm’s mass firings will affect teams across the company including recruiting and some corporate functions
Alongside culling its workforce and implementing AI tools in an attempt to increase its output on a budget, Meta made another cost-cutting move recently by shuttering Instagram’s ‘live shopping’ market feature.
Around half of Meta’s hirings have never experienced a performance review at the company, and the blunt nature of the most recent cycle was described as a return of Zuckerberg’s ‘old school’ harsh style.
The CEO’s penchant for being short was depicted in his 2010 biopic The Social Network, with one former worker telling the Wall Street Journal that his latest moves are a return of ‘OG Mark’ or ‘old school Zuck’.
Following news of the poor performance reviews, a Meta spokesman said: ‘We’ve always had a goal-based culture of high performance, and our review process is intended to incentivize long-term thinking and high-quality work, while helping employees get actionable feedback.’
The 10% of workers who received poor reviews have reportedly taken their ratings as a sign they need to look for new employment opportunities.
Metas drastic changes have already seemed to pay off, however, with the firm announcing a net profit of $4.7 billion for its fourth quarter.
The report broke a massive slump for the tech giant, which had seen its quarterly returns decline three times in a row before its recent profit returns.
Zuckerberg’s firing of around 10 percent of his Meta staff came as several other major firms also released large portions of their employees.
Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the entrepreneur brutally sacked half the company’s staff, around 3,750 employees.
Other firms to suffer from ‘tech wreck’ includes Google-parent company Alphabet, which cut 12,000 employees last month, around 6 percent of its workforce.
At just seven large tech firms, the job cuts announced in recent months total nearly 70,000: Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, HP and Twitter.
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