According to Business Insider, employees at Meta have been forewarned of potential layoffs after Facebook’s parent company announced on Thursday that it would halt hiring and “further restructure.”
CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave his workers an explanation of the choices by referencing the unpredictability of the overall economy. The announcement comes as several tech companies have recently been forced to cut staff as advertisers cut spending in anticipation of a recession.
“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing, it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg told employees during a weekly Q&A session, Bloomberg News reported.
According to reports, the social media company had reduced its plans to hire engineers by at least 30% this year. In addition, the company disclosed extensive employment freezes in May, although particular amounts were not previously reported.
“Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year,” he said. “Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas, and I wanted to give our leaders the ability to decide within their teams where to double down, where to backfill attrition, and where to restructure teams while minimizing thrash to the long-term initiatives.”
According to the report, Zuckerberg also stated on Thursday that Meta would slash budgets across most departments and that individual teams would have to decide how to handle headcount changes.
Following a surge of success that escalated during the pandemic, the tech industry has been experiencing a dip in recent months. Many internet companies are halting or stopping hiring in the face of a broader global economic slowdown, rising interest rates, and regulatory challenges.
If Meta’s restructuring leads to layoffs, the company will be the first of the major tech giants to do so since the start of the economic crisis.
