- The layoffs could begin this week and affect thousands of workers.
- The cost cuts come on top of previously announced plans to lay off 13% of Meta employees.
- Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, calls 2023 the “Year of Efficiency”.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., departed, arrives in federal court in San Jose, California, USA on Tuesday, December 20, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta is planning another round of layoffs that could affect thousands of employees, according to a Bloomberg News report published Monday evening.
The job cuts could begin this week and mark an additional round of layoffs, on top of the 13% of Meta employees who were laid off as part of a major cost-cutting plan announced in November.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment to CNBC about the report.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously indicated that the social networking giant would focus this year on efforts designed to reduce the company’s costs, declaring 2023 its “Year of Efficiency.” He told analysts in February that Meta is focusing on “cutting projects that are not performing or are no longer critical” and plans to “remove layers of middle management to make decisions faster.”
The cost-cutting efforts come at a challenging time for the consumer technology company, which said fourth-quarter costs and expenses rose 22% year-over-year to $25.8 billion, while total revenue fell 4% to $32 billion. .
Meta’s core online advertising business continues to face hurdles due to factors such as a difficult digital advertising market, the lingering effects of Apple’s 2021 iOS privacy update, and increased competition from ByteDance-owned TikTok.
Meanwhile, the company continues to invest heavily in developing the metaverse, which Meta says could represent the next frontier for mainstream computing. The company’s Reality Labs division, charged with building the virtual reality and augmented reality technologies necessary for the metaverse, brought in $727 million in fourth quarter revenue but also posted an operating loss. of $4.28 billion.
Zuckerberg has said he will “take responsibility” for the company’s previously announced cost-cutting plans, saying he sees layoffs “as a last resort.”
“We are restructuring teams to increase our efficiency,” Zuckerberg said last fall when Meta announced layoffs. “But these measures alone won’t bring our spending in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the difficult decision to let people go.”
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