Meta to Reduce Hiring and Effect Layoffs in 2022

Meta to Reduce Hiring and Effect Layoffs in 2022

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, announced a change in the hiring policies of the company, lowering the number of engineers planned to be hired from 10K to 6-7K. Zuckerberg had warned earlier about losing money on the metaverse pivot of the company. Formerly known as Facebook, Meta is preparing to face a strong market downturn.

Meta Preparing for a Difficult Future

Meta, the Social Media and Tech Company that pivoted to Metaverse Tech, has announced a series of measures to counter a market downturn in the future. It is reported that Mark Zuckerberg, founder, and CEO of the company, stated that the current economic situation would change the company's hiring plans for this year.

Zuckerberg stated that Meta will now hire 6,000 to 7,000 engineers this year, down from the estimated 10,000 planned earlier. This implies that the company will effectively reduce hiring by about 30% to 40%. Zuckerberg has hinted that the company will change its stance on employee performance issues. He also hopes to set high standards for performance output from his employees.

On performance expectations, Zuckerberg stated:

"Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you."

Zuckerberg also hinted at Meta executing some layoffs by declaring:

"Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here."

Metaverse Losses

Zuckerberg has underlined, that the focus of the company on the metaverse will result in losing money for the foreseeable future. Meta has largely increased the amount of funds dedicated to R&D for its metaverse hardware division, which is in charge of creating more immersive hardware for people to have a better virtual reality experience.

Zuckerberg has placed his bets on the metaverse and hopes to reap rich dividends in the future for the company. He has previously stated that he believes the metaverse will be able to attract billions of people to Meta’s platform and that monetization services will be scaled later. The company seems to be working on the monetization aspect, which is in a work-in-progress phase. However, Meta has launched a digital clothing boutique for its social media avatars to monetize digital goods.