Meta Layoffs: Which Other Major Tech Companies Fired Their Workforce in 2022
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook-turned-Meta has cut 11,000 jobs from its workforce, one of the largest mass layoffs of recent times
On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta announced that the company would have to cut approximately 11,000 jobs, which is 13% of the total jobs from their global workforce. Meta is one of the largest tech companies in the world, and they own major tech apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR, Beluga and more. While Meta is a global tech giant, the company has been facing several issues simultaneously over the past few months. One of the main sources of income for Meta is advertising, which has been hit due to global economic issues. Apple’s new privacy policies also mean that Meta can no longer have full access to user data without the users’ consent and this has made it harder for the company to build accurate user profiles for advertising purposes.
Moreover, the user base of Facebook has been dropping ever so slightly, after going up consistently over the past decade. Meta is facing heavy competition from TikTok, as more and more users, especially the youth are migrating to TikTok and reducing their use of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In a memo that Zuckerberg sent to his staff on Wednesday, he said that Meta had started mass hiring during the pandemic as online business and e-commerce were booming, due to people being stuck inside their homes due to the pandemic. However, as the pandemic subsided, the online e-commerce and business demands dropped and caused the revenue to go down, which was not sustainable with all the new hiring Meta had done. Moreover, Zuckerberg’s plans to build a successful metaverse through augmented and virtual reality have shown lacklustre results. Meta’s share price has dropped more than 70% this year alone.
“Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss [a reference to Apple] have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,”Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a statement.
Other Tech Companies Also Laying Off Jobs
Big layoffs are not only limited to Meta, as many other tech companies are choosing to lay off employees en masse due to economic conditions and other factors. A recent report by Crunchbase revealed that US-based tech firms have fired more than 45,000 staff as of October 2022. Some major tech companies that have laid off staff recently include:
Elon Musk who recently acquired and took over Twitter cut 3,700 of the company’s staff, about 50% of the company’s workforce. As Elon Musk took over Twitter through a ‘leveraged buyout’, Twitter now owes about $1.2 in interest and loan repayments and they needed to cut costs in order to make repayments.
Suggested Read: Twitter Fires Majority Of Employees In India Amid Global Cull
Salesforce
Salesforce has also reportedly cut off hundreds of jobs from their global workforce in a bid to cut costs. Salesforce has been facing some pressure to cut costs since the hedge fund Starboard Value purchased a stake in the company.
Lyft
Lyft, the popular cab-services provider also cut around 700 employees from their staff, citing fears of a probable recession in the near future. As per reports, the company took this step in order to deal with a weakening economy and cut costs as inflation increases their spending. Lyft had previously cut 60 jobs in July, 2022.
Stripe
Stripe, a major online payment processing company, also cut 1000 jobs from its workforce, which amounts to around 14% of its total workforce. The jobs will be reduced across multiple divisions in the company in a bit to cut costs and focus on profits in a slow and unstable economy.
Microsoft
Back in July, tech giant, Microsoft laid off about 1,000 staff across multiple divisions in order to ‘set the right business priorities and make structural adjustments’. The company has also slowed down hiring in a bid to withstand the possible economic recession.
Tencent
Tencent, a tech giant and the most valuable Chinese company, also reportedly laid off around 5,500 employees in August 2022 and froze hiring for the first time in a decade. The layoffs were from Fanbyte, a gaming news publication owned by Tencent. The layoffs reportedly happened due to the declining revenue in the previous quarter.
Byjus
In the month of October, 2022, India's largest ed-tech company Byjus also cut down about 2,500 jobs, which is about 5% of the company's total workforce. Moreover, Byjus is also looking to cut costs in the marketing department and other avenues in order to manage finances better and become profitable within this financial year.