Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is getting ready for a new wave of job reductions by assigning various departments such as human resources, legal, finance, and top management to devise a restructuring and downsizing strategy aimed at flattening the company’s organisational structure.
The move may potentially impact thousands of employees.
According to reports, Meta intends to reduce the number of management layers between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and interns by repositioning some leaders into lower-level roles without direct subordinates. Other managers may have to manage a larger number of employees as their teams expand. Some Meta insiders speculate that employees whose positions have been modified may eventually resign, resulting in a decrease in the company’s workforce.
Besides management changes, Meta is also contemplating more conventional measures, such as cutting certain projects and jobs across various divisions globally. These actions may not take place in a single day, but they are likely to occur over the next few months throughout the company.
Meta’s ‘Year of Efficiency’
The job cuts come in the wake of Zuckerberg’s attempt to allay fears among employees by stating that he did not expect any further layoffs, following the November downsizing when the company laid off approximately 11,000 workers, which constituted around 13 percent of its total workforce.
During a companywide meeting, Zuckerberg had informed the remaining employees that the company had made significant reductions to prevent the possibility of similar broad layoffs in the near future, as per a recording of the meeting reviewed by The Washington Post.
While acknowledging the volatile nature of the industry, Zuckerberg had stated that he could not guarantee that there would be no future changes, but he foresaw no such action at present. He had added, “But what I can say is that for where we are right now, that’s what I foresee.”
However, in a recent announcement, Zuckerberg declared 2023 as the “year of efficiency,” vowing to reduce middle management and hasten the company’s decision-making process, which implies the possibility of further cuts.
With the apprehension of a looming recession in the US, and the increasing interest rates, many companies in the technology industry have started downsizing their workforces, after aggressively hiring during the peak of the Covid pandemic.
