META employees have reportedly been getting paid to do “no work,” according to a new report.
More than 77,000 workers in US-based tech companies have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2023 – and it’s only February.
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Meta is not exempt from this, but in fact ahead of the curve as it laid off 11,000 people a few months back in November.
Now, Business Insider reports that the tech giant formerly known as Facebook is getting ready for yet another round of layoffs.
News of more layoffs come after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised that 2023 would be a “year of efficiency.”
Just last week on an earnings call, Zuckerberg said: “Next, we’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers in middle management to make decisions faster.”
He also said the company would be “more proactive” about cutting low-performing or low-priority projects.
However, the prospective layoffs may be causing the opposite effect as managers can’t properly plan schedules.
Specifically, there has been a lack of clarity around budgets and future headcounts.
As a result, workers have been less productive, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
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Two Meta employees told FT that no work has been getting done due to the layoff chaos.
“Honestly, it’s still a mess,” one employee said.
“The year of efficiency is kicking off with a bunch of people getting paid to do nothing,” they added.
Meta is just one of many tech companies that have been laying off staff by the thousands.
This is to counter high interest rates and an unstable economic climate.
Another big reason is that companies are investing in riskier industries like AI and the metaverse, and need the funds to do so.
In Meta’s case, the company lost more than 70 percent of its value in the last two years.
What’s going on?
A number of factors have contributed to Meta’s revenue loss – this includes investing in failed metaverse products and competing with TikTok, which is attracting much of the world’s younger users.
Meta also lost advertising revenue due to Apple introducing its new iOS privacy changes in 2021.
In early 2022 and again in October, Meta said it would slow hiring for some management roles and pause taking on summer interns, Bloomberg reported.
Budget cuts of this scale marked a first for the company since the founding of Facebook in 2004.
The CEO said the company would reduce headcount and reorganize to lower expenses and focus on its priorities.
Metaverse madness
In May 2022, the company was forced to pull the plug on several of its metaverse projects after it faced major financial losses.
It’s unclear exactly which projects were discontinued, but Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth told employees the company could no longer fund much of its work, per En Gadget.
However, some of the metaverse projects were only slated to be “postponed” and not fully scrapped.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed at the time that layoffs were not a part of the proposed changes, according to Reuters.
