Working for a large tech group lately is definitely not the good life. According to our colleagues at the Wall Street Journal, a new wave is brewing, this time at Meta, as the Internet tried to survive the layoffs of half of Twitter’s workforce last week. The size will still be less than its counterpart. But of the 87,000 employees identified so far, a few thousand will have to leave within a few days.
This will be the first wave of mass layoffs in Meta’s history since its founding 18 years ago. By the way, its reason is no secret. The company has been in serious financial trouble for several months. Its results for the last fiscal quarter are simply disastrous as the stock market value is at its lowest level since 2016. It depends on Mark Zuckerberg’s obsession with the metaverse and, to put it succinctly, investments that have yet to bear fruit.
The commodity is doing so badly that mass layoffs are expected
Still, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Meta was very optimistic about mass recruitment. More than 27,000 employees joined the firm between 2020 and 2021. In addition, more than 15,000 people joined the ranks this year. But the group is already paying the price for its strategy, which has cost it billions of dollars. As is always the case in such situations, these errors are now passed on to the employees.
The company has yet to comment on the situation, according to the Wall Street Journal, but was directed to a recent statement from Mark Zuckerberg explaining that he wanted it later. “concentrate [ses] investments in a small number of high priority growth areas”. As usual, the billionaire was oddly optimistic, “Finish 2023 approximately the same size or slightly smaller than today”.
Source : wall street diary
