Overall, 54% of laid off employees are in business positions, with the remainder in technical positions, said Lori Goler, head of human resources at Meta.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms told employees on Friday it had halted development of smart displays and smartwatches, saying nearly half of the 11,000 jobs eliminated this week in an unprecedented cost-cutting move were tech jobs. Told.
Speaking at an employee town hall meeting heard by Reuters, Meta executives reorganized parts of the company, integrating voice and video calling units with other messaging teams, and focused on tough engineering problems. He said he was creating a new division, the Family Foundation.
Management said the first mass layoffs in the social media company’s 18-year history affected staff across all teams at all levels, including high-performing individuals.
Overall, 54% of laid off employees are in business positions, with the remainder in technical positions, said Lori Goler, head of human resources at Meta. Mehta’s recruiting team has been cut in half, she said.
Executives said no further job cuts were expected. But other costs need to be cut, they said, noting ongoing reviews of contractors, real estate, computing infrastructure and various products.
smart device cut
Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, who runs the Metaverse-oriented Reality Labs division, told staff that Meta is finishing work on its Portal smart display device and smartwatch.
Meta decided earlier this year to stop selling its Portal device, known for its video calling capabilities, to consumers and instead focus on business sales, according to Bosworth.
Management recently decided to make “bigger changes” as the economy falters, he said.
“It took a very long time and a lot of investment to get into the enterprise segment. It felt like the wrong way to invest time and money,” said Bosworth.
Portals were not a major source of revenue and elicited privacy concerns from potential users. Meta had yet to announce a smartwatch.
Bosworth said the smartwatch division will instead focus on augmented reality glasses.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Friday reiterated his apology from Wednesday for having to cut 13% of his workforce, saying he failed to anticipate Meta’s first revenue slump. told the staff.
Meta has been actively adopted during the pandemic as the use of social media by consumers working from home has surged. But this year, business has taken a hit as advertisers and consumers cut back on spending in the face of rising costs and rapidly rising interest rates.
The company also faced increasing competition from TikTok and lost access to valuable user data that powers its ad targeting system after Apple made privacy-oriented changes to its operating system.
“The revenue trend is much lower than I expected. This was also a mistake. This was a big mistake in the company’s planning. I am responsible for it,” Zucker said. Berg said.
He added that there are no plans to “substantially” increase headcount in the Reality Labs division in the future.
The meta stock rose 1% at $113.02.
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