As a result of the global economic slowdown, Facebook parent Meta is cutting back on hiring and putting more pressure on its staff.
On Thursday, at a weekly employee Q&A session, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed staff that Meta’s intentions to hire developers would be reduced by at least 30% this year. Citing the market crisis and the looming recession, Zuckerberg stated that Meta would only hire 6,000 to 7,000 new engineers in 2022, a significant decrease from its earlier aim to hire more than 10,000.
“If I had to bet, I’d say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history,” Zuckerberg said.
In addition, Zuckerberg also stated that the company was leaving some open roles vacant and was “turning up the heat” on performance management to weed out employees who could not fulfill specific key performance indicators.
So rather than having managers fire employees, he hopes that the stress would push them to quit. Zuckerberg seems to be convincing workers to go on their own.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg said.
“Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you and that self-selection is OK with me,” he added.
The announcement signals the start of workforce expansion at Meta, with the firm concluding the first quarter of 2022 with 28% more full-time employees than the previous year. However, when both user growth and ad revenue slowed, Meta was obliged to institute a hiring freeze across many company divisions in May to beef up earnings—and reduce the hiring rate in the Labs unit tasked with constructing metaverse.
Meta’s planned downsizing was revealed in an internal memo from chief product officer Chris Cox. The memo revealed Meta’s plans to reduce its economic loss. Meta has already lost over half of its market value this year, a trend that intensified in February when Meta revealed that it had lost daily active members on its flagship Facebook site for the first time in 2021.
“We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets,” Cox wrote.
“We must prioritize more ruthlessly, be thoughtful about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and velocity inside the company, and operate leaner, meaner, better exciting teams,” he added.
Facebook hopes to reverse its unfavorable trends by monetizing Instagram Reels to fight TikTok’s supremacy in the A.I.-driven video arena.
In the memo, Cox stated that users’ time on Instagram Reels had doubled year over year and that Meta would be substantially investing in A.I.-driven content selection. In addition, Cox indicated that user interaction on Reels could soon boost the company’s performance and that the company aims to put advertisements on Reels as quickly as feasible.