For the third time since November, Meta has laid off thousands of employees and the reason is rather…surprising.
Last November, Mark Zuckerberg addressed his employees, but also the public, to explain that the company had to part with approximately 11,000 of its “talented elements”, in particular to respond to the company’s deteriorating economic situation. And the Facebook boss seems to have taken a liking to it since, after launching a new wave of layoffs in April, thousands of his company’s employees have been updating their profiles on LinkedIn for a few days.
2022, a complicated year for Meta
While Meta wasn’t the only tech giant to struggle in 2022, it’s probably the most prominent example. Indeed, its business model has been severely tested by the adoption of laws and regulations on data protection and the group has collected record fines. In addition, the general decline in advertising budgets on the Internet has had a severe impact. The advent of competing platforms, TikTok in the lead, obviously did not help the situation either. But above all, the titanic project so dear to Zuckerberg’s heart, the metaverse, has swallowed up tens of billions of dollars, for a return on investment that remains derisory. To the point that, for the first time in its history, Meta records in 2022 a drop in revenue over the year.
So, in the face of the CEO’s stubbornness and these worrying results, the company’s shareholders began to raise their voices, forcing him to take measures to regain profitability. In shareholder jargon, that means firing people. It should be noted that if 11,000 people had thus lost their jobs overnight, the latter had reason to console themselves by seeing the childish smile of the shareholders of Meta, whose action had jumped by 7.7% the following day. .
2023, “year of efficiency” for Meta
Except that dismissing Mark Zuckerberg seems to really love it. Because it only took him five months to do it again, freeing up thousands of additional employees in April, most of them in technical jobs. During the first wave of layoffs, Mark Zuckerberg had explained himself at length, and had recognized his own errors in the management of the company. But this time, the justification was different: after the first 11,000 departures, the billionaire would have discovered that his company was faster and more efficient with a lower payroll. It was enough to make him want to make drastic cuts, in the name of what he called “the year of efficiency”.
And a month later, here it is in the process of getting rid of thousands of employees, this time mainly in the marketing, recruitment, and UX sector. He didn’t even bother to give them a comment this time. Today, Meta’s price is 180% higher than last November.
As for the metaverse, it is the only one whose position at Meta does not seem threatened: nearly four billion dollars were invested there during the first quarter of 2023, generating income of just over 300 million on the period.
Source : CNBC
10