As part of its restructuring plans, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, plans to lay off an additional 10,000 employees. It anticipates incurring restructuring costs of between $3 billion and $5 billion. The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has cautioned that economic instability may persist for an extended period of time. This announcement comes on top of significant layoffs that occurred in the previous fall when 11,000 employees were laid off. Zuckerberg has referred to this as the "year of efficiency."
“Here’s the timeline you should expect: over the next couple of months, org leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our orgs, canceling lower priority projects, and reducing our hiring rates,” - outlines Zuckerberg through a message to Meta’s employees.
The company's CEO stated that it plans to announce its restructuring and layoffs in its technology groups by the end of April, followed by its business groups by the end of May. According to Zuckerberg, some changes may take until the end of the year in certain instances.
For the fourth quarter of 2022, Meta reported revenue of $32.17 billion, a 4% decline from last year. A 22% increase in costs led to a 55% decline in net income to $4.65 billion. According to an SEC filing, Meta's last round of layoffs has resulted in a revised total expense projection of $86 billion to $92 billion for the full year 2023, down from $89 billion to 95 billion previously.
Businesses and industries are adversely affected by the recession. With a market capitalization of $2.4 trillion, Apple, the most valuable company on Wall Street, will delay bonuses and consider a hiring freeze to cut costs. In January, Google announced its intentions to lay off over 12,000 employees, while Microsoft revealed plans to reduce its workforce by 10,000. There are enormous impacts and already visible consequences, but their full extent is still to be discovered.
“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” - claims Mark Zuckerberg.
