The Financial Times reported on that Facebook parent company Meta has postponed finalizing the budgets of several units as it gets ready to make more job layoffs.
According to the FT, there had been a lack of transparency over finances and projected head counts in recent weeks. This month, Meta said that it anticipates its costs to range from US$89 billion to US$95 billion in 2023. CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to the time frame as a "Year of Efficiency."
The owner of WhatsApp lost more than 11,000 positions, or 13% of its workforce, in November, following major giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp., who announced tens of thousands of layoffs as a result of the recession.
Big Tech stocks, especially those dependent on advertising revenue, have experienced a major sell-off over the past year due to challenging macroeconomic conditions and marketers' tighter budgets. Since tech executives admit they overextended during the digital boom of the coronavirus epidemic, this has resulted in an employment reduction across the board for the sector.
Wall Street investors expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's financial situation last year as the economic recession started to bite into its profitability. This dissatisfaction included Meta's $10 billion annual investment into the metaverse and its bloated personnel.
Despite the biggest workforce cut in Meta's history, which occurred in November, additional layoffs are anticipated in March as a result of ongoing performance reviews, according to three current and former employees.
According to one insider, managers are occasionally asked to leave the company or transfer to roles where they do not manage anyone, known as individual contributor roles. Internally known as "the flattening," some workers worry that individuals who change roles are essentially being demoted, the source added.
Another employee claimed that the process of ranking and merging the jobs of intermediate and senior managers was known internally as "calibration." Even in key areas like the metaverse and advertising, projects and choices that once took days to finalize now take approximately a month.
One of the persons said that specific budgets would normally be finalized by the end of the year. "Honestly, it's still a mess," one staffer admitted. "The year of efficiency is kicking off with a bunch of people getting paid to do nothing."
It happens at a time when Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is contemplating additional rounds of layoffs following the November firing of 11,000 employees, or nearly 13% of its workforce. Due to the layoffs and uncertainties, three employees said that the workforce was demotivated and demoralized.
