Meta to freeze hiring, reduce headcount and reconstruct teams

During a Q&A meeting with Meta employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the social media giant will stop hiring, reduce headcount and reorganize its teams because of the economic uncertainty, one of the sources that joined the session told Bloomberg.

“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now,” Zuckerberg said. “But from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively.” 

He said that the majority of the company’s teams, including those that show growth, will see budget reductions, and that individual teams would figure out how to deal with changes in teams. As reported by Bloomberg, the company could leave roles vacant when workers leave, relocate staff to other teams or “manage out people who aren’t succeeding.”

As a result, Zuckerberg said that Meta would be a smaller company by the end of next year.

“For the first 18 years of the company, we basically grew quickly basically every year, and then more recently our revenue has been flat to slightly down for the first time,” he said.

Just before reporting its first ever revenue drop, the company said in late July that it has slowed down hiring, and Zuckerberg warned employees about a deep economic downturn.

‘’If I had to bet, I’d say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history,’’ he said at the time.

Now it seems like the company has expanded the scope of its budget cuts and hiring-freeze. 

Meanwhile, in addition to Meta, many other tech companies announced either lay-offs or hiring freezes this year, including Google, Snap, Twitter, Robinhood, Shopify, ByteDance, and Niantic.