Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, has decreed a hiring stoppage and will implement other steps to restructure teams and reduce company expensesas reported by its CEO Marck Zuckerberg during a weekly meeting with employees, economic media say this Friday.
Zuckerberg warned that Meta, which had more than 83,500 employees as of June 30 and hired 5,700 people in the second quarterwill be a smaller company in 2023.
“I was hoping the economy would have stabilized more clearly by now. But from what we’re seeing, it doesn’t look like it has yet, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” he said in making the announcement to workers, according to the published by US media.
Zuckerberg noted that during the company’s first 18 years, it grew rapidly every year“and then more recently, our revenue was flat or slightly down for the first time.”
Last week, The Wall Street Journal already reported that Meta planned to cut expenses by at least 10% in the coming monthsits first big budget cut since it was founded in 2004.
The plan includes an internal reorganization and significant reductions in certain teams, although the company still plans to hire “thousands of people” in 2023, according to an internal message sent to employees by the company’s chief of staff, Lori Goler, – to which the newspaper had access – after the meeting with Zuckerberg.
Goler also warned in the message that the company’s budget for 2023 would be “very tight” on all teams and that the stoppage in contracting would allow concentration on important projects.
The communication also details that Meta would not automatically cover vacancies and that no more internal transfers will be made to prevent people from occupying positions that could change.
The tech giant has been adjusting its staffing plans for months after announcing in May that changes to ad tracking introduced by Apple last year would cost it about $10 billion this year.
Also faces challenges as a result of increased competition for users from rivalsparticularly TikTok.