Meta Plans Thousands More Layoffs As Soon As This Week (indiatimes.com) 79
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Economic Times: Meta, the owner of Facebook andInstagram, is planning a fresh round of layoffs and will cut thousands of employees as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter. The world's largest social networking company is eliminating more jobs, on top of a 13% reduction in November, in a bid to become a more efficient organization. In its earlier round of cuts, Meta slashed 11,000 workers in what was its first-ever major layoff.
The company has also been working to flatten its organization, giving buyout packages to managers and cutting whole teams it deems nonessential, Bloomberg News reported in February, a move that is still being finalized and could affect thousands of staffers. The imminent round of cuts is being driven by financial targets and is separate from the "flattening," said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. Meta, which has seen a slowdown in advertising revenue and has shifted focus to a virtual-reality platform called the metaverse, has been asking directors and vice presidents to make lists of employees that can be let go, the people said. This phase of layoffs could be finalized in the next week, according to the people.
The company has also been working to flatten its organization, giving buyout packages to managers and cutting whole teams it deems nonessential, Bloomberg News reported in February, a move that is still being finalized and could affect thousands of staffers. The imminent round of cuts is being driven by financial targets and is separate from the "flattening," said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. Meta, which has seen a slowdown in advertising revenue and has shifted focus to a virtual-reality platform called the metaverse, has been asking directors and vice presidents to make lists of employees that can be let go, the people said. This phase of layoffs could be finalized in the next week, according to the people.
Re: (Score:2)
Aww, that's cute - the anonymous coward thinks that people with high-altitude titles in big tech businesses don't have massive egos and actually fear anything.
Director levels will move on into other jobs based on nothing but "I was director of ${THING} at Meta." in some other organization where they think that kind of thing is impressive.
VP-level will have a big fat severance package combined with the same effect.
And anyone remaining at those management levels will already think they're hot shit and untouch
Re: (Score:2)
"You think a company that big is going to have one VP like the United States of America, and one director? How exactly would anything get done over there?"
As far as I can tell the only thing execs do is hold pointless meetings and disrupt perfectly good work plans made by people who know what they are doing with random decisions by the exec who doesn't understand what is going on. The worst are the ones who play armchair experts and get involved.
Re: (Score:2)
As far as I can tell the only thing execs do is ..."
The first six words tell most of the story.
Strike Two (Score:4)
Layoff rounds are happening everywhere regularly (usually every 2 to 5 years), but two rounds so close to each other spell "danger" for a company.
Something must be very rotten inside Meta, and I am not talking (only) about Mark this time.
Re: (Score:2)
It's been reported that the ad market is going to hell. I don't think Meta can survive only on people promoting their own shitposts on Facebook / Instagram.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, there's nothing nefarious about this at all. Zuck wants to give the shareholders some earnings boners so that they leave him alone about his pet projects.
Re: (Score:2)
Zuck runs FB as a dictator. He has majority control of voting shares (unlike, say, Bezos at Amazon (9,4%) or Musk at Tesla (13,4%)).
Honestly, though, as much as Meta is everyone's favourite punching bag - and as stupid as this "pivot to the Metaverse" is - I don't like seeing layoffs there. Facebook Research has done a lot of really good work on free, open source projects in the AI field.
Re:Strike Two (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Strike Two (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I don't like seeing the layoffs either - it means we're redistributing their shitty middle-managers across the industry after having successfully quarantined them in one place.
Re: (Score:2)
This describes Amazon perfectly.
It's just interest rates (Score:3)
This is by design. Powell has repeatedly said he's raising interest rates in order to cause layoffs because that's the only way you can conceive lowering inflation.
It is telling that we had decades of inflation in healthcare and education and at least a decade and rent in housing and nobody cared.
Re: It's just interest rates (Score:2)
Government spending can sometimes have an effect on inflation, as can many other factors. Why arenâ(TM)t you mentioning them?
Re:It's just interest rates (Score:5, Insightful)
Inflation is an effect of government spending
Over half of inflation is caused by recent increases in corporate profits, mostly blamed on costs rising due to the pandemic. There have been several studies released which have demonstrated this. Yes, they are taking inflation into account when calculating the profits. Inflation is hitting individuals much harder than corporations, because there's lots of empty industrial and commercial space but not much available housing due to investments and unlicensed hotels, as well as permitting schemes that discourage the construction of starter homes.
Government printing money is a factor, but it's not the largest factor.
Re: (Score:3)
Inflation by definition is the expansion of the money supply
The definition of inflation is an increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy. It can be caused by expansion of the money supply, but inflation absolutely refers to prices, and not money supply.
Re: (Score:1)
It is not, prices do not inflate or deflate, prices rise and fall. This redefinition is basically what government 'economists' have done to the language to confuse the people in a pure Orwellian fashion.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, well then the interest rate increase is to help prevent "price rises". Generally people refer to price rises over time as "inflation", but I get if you only read one entry of your dictionary that might confuse you.
Government printing money isn't a factor (Score:2)
But in the last 40 years we've shifted 50 trillion dollars to the 1%. 6.5 trillion alone was handed to them during the Trump administration.
They took that money and used lax or non-existent antitrust laws to buy out all their competitors. Once there was no competition they jacked up prices and it wasn't really
Re: (Score:2)
I really love it when the cheap seats get involved in the discussion.
The instant you've said "Inflation is an effect of ${SINGLE_THING}" you've proven yourself to be a neophyte that doesn't understand macroeconomics.
Re: (Score:2)
Inflation is an effect of government spending
Whenever you distil a complex multi-variate economic problem down to a single cause you can instantly know you're wrong. Just wrong. There is no one cause for inflation (or deflation). There are many. It's a highly complex system with many moving parts working against each other. Government spending is just one factor.
Powell should inflate the interest to match the levels of spending (~50-60% at least) if he wants to reverse inflation.
Whenever you think you have a singular solution to a complex multi-variate economic problem you can instantly know you're wrong.
Please let the actual people who know what they are doing do the
Re: (Score:1)
Tell that to the government then, they have one solution to inflation and that is to crank up interest levels. If the government thinks making it less attractive for people to use government banks will decrease inflation, that means one thing, government banks handing out money is the problem.
I'm not saying that it's the only solution, but it's the only solution the government can do beyond completely dissolving itself.
Re: It's just interest rates (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It is telling that we had decades of inflation in healthcare and education and at least a decade and rent in housing and nobody cared. But as soon as the inflation starts to be felt at the top suddenly it's all hands on deck. It's also interesting that we have all this talk about cooling the economy and causing layoffs right around the time workers are getting a little bit of bargaining power and talking about unionization.
This is all that's happening. Workers got a bit uppity during and directly after the pandemic. Union drives were increasing, and peons were beginning to feel like they had a leg to stand on financially, so they weren't quite as willing to take the never ending stream of bullshit that most companies would like to shovel at them. It's now time to beat them back into submission.
As wonderful as the fantasy of a government that operates "of the people, for the people, by the people," is? Sooner or later we all h
Re: (Score:3)
It is telling that we had decades of inflation in healthcare and education and at least a decade and rent in housing and nobody cared. But as soon as the inflation starts to be felt at the top suddenly it's all hands on deck. It's also interesting that we have all this talk about cooling the economy and causing layoffs right around the time workers are getting a little bit of bargaining power and talking about unionization.
This is all that's happening. Workers got a bit uppity during and directly after the pandemic. Union drives were increasing, and peons were beginning to feel like they had a leg to stand on financially, so they weren't quite as willing to take the never ending stream of bullshit that most companies would like to shovel at them. It's now time to beat them back into submission.
The problem with that approach is that I've heard more software engineers talking about unions in the past six months than I did in the twenty years prior, and unlike those twenty years, most of the comments are in favor of unions, rather than talking about what a mistake they are.
The best way to get unions is to try to "beat them [workers] back into submission". Happy employees don't start unions. The more unhappy you make them, the harder they tend to push back.
As wonderful as the fantasy of a government that operates "of the people, for the people, by the people," is? Sooner or later we all have to wake up to the reality that our government is 100% "of big business, for big business, by big business." That's it. End of line. If you aren't a billionaire? You don't fucking matter. Period.
The very existence of unions is fundamenta
Re: (Score:2)
The very existence of unions is fundamentally a workaround for flawed governments that don't adequately protect workers. Governments either do their jobs or they get replaced. Unions are their replacement. Government actions in the area of employee protection have become largely moot, because governments themselves have become largely irrelevant.
On the contrary, governments are not irrelevant at all. Governments are actively working branches of big business, doing everything they can to prevent worker revolt and increase corporate profits. While the Democrats in the USA talk a good game about unions, make no mistake. If it seems workers are utilizing unions to gain traction again, they will, absolutely, be legally shackled. There is no way the government division of America's corporatocracy will let that shit stand. No way at all.
The AFA was the po
We can have the government we want (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Powell has repeatedly said he's raising interest rates in order to cause layoffs", please cite where he said that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Shareholder revolt in 3... 2... 1..."
That's going to be a bit difficult as long as Zuck owns the majority of shareholder votes personally, which he does. If push comes to shove, they could try proving in a court that Zuck breached his fiduciary duties to the other shareholders (it's not legal for the majority shareholder to just vote all the money into his personal account and tell the other shareholders, "Sorry, suckers."). But that ain't easy.
Re: (Score:2)
>"Forget all that hype I told you about the Metaverse, we're an AI company now!"
I read this in Jello Biafra's voice. [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
Layoff rounds are happening everywhere regularly (usually every 2 to 5 years), but two rounds so close to each other spell "danger" for a company. Something must be very rotten inside Meta, and I am not talking (only) about Mark this time.
Something has been rotten for a long time. Want to know why people are using Facebook less and less? It is mostly because they focus on chasing whatever the latest teen fad is, rather than fixing the bugs in their existing crapware, all while dropping longstanding features for no obvious reason.
Between bogus Content ID claims, broken systems that can make it impossible to start live streaming sessions if you accidentally close the window at the wrong time, and other headaches, the Facebook live streaming
Re: (Score:2)
Layoff rounds are happening everywhere regularly (usually every 2 to 5 years), but two rounds so close to each other spell "danger" for a company.
They do nothing of the sort. The only danger here is making ignorant statements about a company health without looking at facts. You know what you get after you subtract 11000 employees from Facebook's 2022 employee count? Their largest ever year on year employee growth count.
Let that sink in for a second. After laying off 11000 employees Facebook's employees still grew by more than any other year.
This isn't "danger". This is a course correction for a stupid hiring spree.
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't "danger". This is a course correction for a stupid hiring spree.
Um... yeah, that spells danger.
AKA "avoid this company at all costs, they have no clue what they are doing".
They should've started looking for jobs months ago (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Peak Digital (Score:3, Interesting)
Many IT experts have seen this coming in recent years. The industrialisation of IT is in full swing and virtualization, automation and next AI/ML will do the bulk of the "work", if you could even call it that. The only IT experts meetups still happening on a regular basis in my town are those of DevOps and even those guys have moved to discussing the various GUI config tools and management kits that automate most of their work as well.
The software-bots will take our jobs and if I'm lucky I'll basically be clicking together services and making some PO happy with colorful things to click on. And maybe fix some bad accident with a nightshift once or twice a year.
This is what we have been working on and it's finally arrived. In the end this will spell more wealth for all.
Re: (Score:2)
s/for all/for Zuck/
Re: Peak Digital (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
By making sure they're absolutely certainly not going to come to the office anymore?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. You can run a tech company just fine with a skeleton crew. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/0... [cnn.com]
Then again maybe not.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You can run a tech company just fine with a skeleton crew
Ok, I have heard of abuse of H1B visa because they allegedly lack the staff to run their businesses, but if you ask me, it's going too far if they start dabbling in necromancy.
Re: (Score:2)
When those laid off / fired run out of money, they'll be happy to come back for a small percentage of what they used to be paid. That's the true usefulness of layoffs. Beat down those left behind with more work than they can handle until they leave too, then rehire everybody slowly, at far lower salaries.
God DAMN do I love me some economics. It smells of death and decay.
Re:Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, though... they don't.
This isn't the 1980s and 90s where your staff had a load of house mortgages pushing their noses to the grindstone. Millennials saw the real estate prices, noticed they will never be able to afford it, will never be able to own anything, and instead of stomping their feet and trying to fight that windmill, they did the sensible thing: They shrugged and said "ok".
They also don't own expensive cars or other pseudo-status symbols. They don't give a shit about that. They don't want expensive vacations, they don't want expensive furniture, they are simply not interested in the whole consumerism bullshit.
And that makes them quite powerful in the bargaining department. Because they can actually exist on very little for a very long time.
What I've also noticed is that there is a lot less of that "I got mine, sucks to be you" mentality that you'll find in my generation. They will actually help each other out, so whoever currently got a job will gladly let their friend bum the couch for while they're out of job and apartment, because they know that this may well turn around the other way 2 years down the road. The looming threat of homelessness just isn't as bad for them as it is for, well, me.
The old trick doesn't work anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. We'll see if they manage to get enough of the workforce beat back down to lower standards again.
Though I do hope at some point we see the floor on this sort of shenanigans, I doubt the MBAs and big-heads running the show have gotten the message yet. Most of them are still playing by the same playbook business has used for generations. It takes the business world a generation or two of pure revolt before they let any sort of message from the bottom penetrate the decision makers.
Re: (Score:2)
Where you had multiple employees fighting over a single job, you now have companies fighting over a single employee. And supply and demand works both ways, people will work for the company that offers them what they want. Adapt or perish, because if you don't, you will be stuck with the duds nobody else wants, just like people used to be stuck with the companies nobody would willingly want to work for.
Re: (Score:1)
This is what we have been working on and it's finally arrived. In the end this will spell more wealth for all.
WTF are you talking about.
anyone paying attention, and who doesnt' have an agenda, knows that the productivity gains of workers over the last 30 years have gone to the 1%.
any advancement in productivity is going to accelerate our dystopian future not help us avoid it. The powers that be will make sure that any possibility of using productivity gains to actually have a better life will be sucked o
Re: (Score:2)
This is what we have been working on and it's finally arrived. In the end this will spell more wealth for all.
True, the wealthy owning all the bots will be able to order more food from Uber creating a lot of new jobs. Seriously, I'm skeptical about the AI will replace coders, journalists artists thing. For now, they are just new dev/search/design tools. Let's assume it does replace the majority of them (ignoring outliers who can't be replaced for some reason), how do we all get more wealth from this? And preferably in short time, not next generation, because people need to eat during their whole lifetime.
Meta stands for.. (Score:3)
Meta stands for Metastasize, and yet more layoffs proves it.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds more like it's going into remission, really.
Re: (Score:1)
Meta stands for Metastasize, and yet more layoffs proves it.
Technically that's the opposite of what is happening. Ironically for your analogy when we first started mocking the name change and joking about metastasize Facebook was going through an insane growth period, a period of growth where even after the biopsy that cut 11000 workers out of the cancer it was still bigger than the year before.
So ... did we cure it? Is Meta actually getting better and going into remission? Is that what you're trying to tell us? I think your joke is falling flat.
Re: (Score:3)
You're clearly an idiot - they're clearly losing weight from the cancer. It's not remission.
One advantage (Score:4, Funny)
At least being laid off from Meta you wont be publicly humiliated and declared incompetent on Twitter by a sociopathic billionaire. At least your dignity will be intact, because Meta will at least pretend to care that you get rehired someplace. For all Elons talk about caring about human being he sure seems to rage-hate many of them.
Re: One advantage (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
(The general "you", not you, the poster.)
Not all salaries are equal (Score:5, Insightful)
... Meta ... has been asking directors and vice presidents to make lists of employees that can be let go
Whoever these unidentified individuals at the top are (above director/VP) that are asking for lists, they themselves should obviously be at the top of those list. Firing even one of these top executives would save the jobs of dozens or possibly even hundreds of other workers who simply can't afford to lose their barely-making-ends-meet job. And given that all that "Mr. Meta" seems able to do is ask for lists... no real value would be lost.
Sorry... did I voice my unrealistic expectations again? /s
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Firing even one of these top executives would save the jobs of dozens or possibly even hundreds of other workers who simply can't afford to lose their barely-making-ends-meet job.
The goal of a job is to do a job, not to exist purely for pay. Meta went insanely overboard in hiring in 2021/22 to the point where even after the layoffs of 11000 people they still finished the year with record employee number growth.
If you are suggesting that we should fire management to pay for employees who have nothing to do then I think we can all be thankful you're not running a company. ... Or actually we should promote you to Facebook management since it sounds like you'd sink the company very quic
Old Ideas and Old Social Media (Score:3)
VR's a dead end, and Meta bet the company on it.
Then comes the fact that Facebook is no longer "cool". The teens and 20s have moved on to other social media. Facebook is now the local bulletin board and replacement for posting garage sales and local buy/sell ads. And maybe somewhere in all that you post vacation photos and keep track of friends, family, and people you knew in high school and college. It's a glorified yearbook of life past and present with classified ad functionality.
The age group that uses Facebook probably doesn't click on the ads much, nor care to wear a VR headset.
Instagram is trying really hard to be TikTok Too. Even going so far as relaxing guidelines so people can post softcore/risqué content to gain an audience. I guess they want to police what they consider "disinformation" but nipple videos plainly viewable by kids are ok.
Meta has problems, and now they're ripping them apart.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. Seriously, there are people who will hang out for hours on end in VR. Not kidding. But that market is very specific and these people also have a very specific reason why they like it.
We're talking about Furries and Cosplayers here. Why do they like VR? Obvious reason: They can finally "be" what they want to pretend to be. They can be that fantasy creature they always dreamed to be. And others will see them as that fantasy creature and interact with them as if they actually were that fantasy creature.
T
Re: (Score:2)
VR's a dead end, and Meta bet the company on it.
Meta sunk a paltry $13billion into it, less than 10% of revenue invested in R&D and still made over $20billion on profit. They didn't bet the company on it. They put a bit of R&D into it funded by their core business.
That said VR isn't a dead end. You said it yourself people will spend an hour on it. That is a glowing review in a world where most people spend far less than an hour on any given day playing a console. Sure there are plenty of gamers who put far more hours into games, but there are lik
Re: (Score:2)
No one wants to pot on a VR headset and hang out with people for hours on end
I predict the future will prove you wrong. The problem is that the tech isn't very good yet. VR headsets need to be very lightweight (not much more than an ordinary pair of glasses), high resolution and have near perfect synchronization between physical and in-game movement.
Re: (Score:1)
Funny, my kids haven't touched Roblox ever since they got to jump in Gorilla Tag...
"Wealth for all" (Score:1)
> In the end this will spell more wealth for all.
And I'm Superman. (Yes, I look terrific in those tights.)
The plutocrats won't give up their wealth without a well-funded fight.
Yeah, unnecessary employees (Score:2)
Yep. Managers laid off? Don't make me laugh. Who'll get laid off are developers, and software testers. I mean, based on faceplant, they don't use any of the latter.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't need them. No really. After the last round of layoffs Meta still had record employee growth at a time where their products themselves stagnated. I think they hired people because it was the cool thing to do at the time and now they are realising that the people they hired were sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Meta has been hurting as a company the past few years, so this is nothing more than a course correction for a company that shouldn't have been going on a hiring spree in the first plac