Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has added another 10,000 employees to the 11,000 they sacked last month, in a move that will impact Australian employees of the social network that is currently under investigation by various Governments around the world.
It’s also tipped that work from home Meta employees are set to be ordered back to work in offices.
The second wave of mass redundancies from the tech giant, which laid off 11,000 employees last November, was expected as brands move away from investing in social media platforms.
Deloitte Research recently revealed that more than 80% of Australia’s see social media news services from the likes of Facebook as “fake” or “bought”.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the cuts – part of a “year of efficiency” – would be “tough.”
In addition to the 10,000 jobs cut, 5,000 vacancies at the firm will be left unfilled, he told staff.
The cuts were revealed in a memo, Zuckerberg sent to staff, where he claimed he believed the company had suffered “a humbling wake-up call” in 2022 when it experienced a dramatic slowdown in revenue.
Meta previously announced that in the three months to December 2022, earnings were down four per cent year-on-year – though it still managed to make a profit of more than $23bn over the course of 2022.
Mr Zuckerberg cited higher interest rates in the US, global geopolitical instability and increased regulation as some of the factors affecting Meta and contributing to the slowdown.
“I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years,” he says.
Facebook are not alone in slashing jobs. Google, Amazon, and in Australia the NBN have moved to slash jobs recently.
At the start of this year, Amazon announced it planned to close more than 18,000 jobs because of “the uncertain economy” and rapid hiring during the pandemic, while Google’s parent company Alphabet made 12,000 cuts.
One division that was hot was their voice activation and Alexa business, that is bleeding losses.
Currently Meta is punting on the metaverse being The Next Big Thing.
To date, Meta has spent more than A$20 billion trying to get a product to market.
Zuckerberg says there will be no new hires until the restructuring is complete, adding that he aims to make the company “flatter” by “removing multiple layers of management”.
He also dedicated a section of his correspondence to hybrid work. His claims that software engineers who joined Meta in person performed better than those who joined remotely, suggesting hybrid working will come under scrutiny during the current “year of efficiency” and that work from home could be stopped.
