Meta, formerly Facebook, plans to start laying off workers on a large scale this week, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The layoffs are expected to affect thousands of employees and an announcement is scheduled to arrive as early as this Wednesday. According to the report, this could be among the largest rounds of layoffs at tech companies in recent months.
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According to the company’s reports in September, Meta has over 87 thousand employees. A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment on the report but referred the Wall Street Journal to a statement from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to which Meta “will focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas.”
Zuckerberg said at the time that this means some teams “will grow significantly, but most other teams will stay the same or shrink over the next year. Overall, we expect to end 2023 about the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
Facebook shares have fallen since the beginning of the year by 73% and reached the lowest level since 2016. As of today, it is the company with the worst performance this year in the S&P 500 index.