Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., left, arrives in federal court in San Jose, California, U.S., Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022.
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Meta is planning another round of layoffs that could affect thousands of workers, according to a Bloomberg News report published Monday night.
The job cuts could begin this week and be a further round of layoffs, adding to the 13% of Meta’s workforce that were laid off as part of a cost-cutting plan announced in November.
A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment to CNBC for this report.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said the social media giant would focus this year on the company’s cost-cutting efforts, declaring 2023 the “Year of Efficiency.” In February, he told analysts that Meta was focused on “reducing projects that are not working or are no longer critical” and planned to “remove layers of middle management to make decisions faster.”
The cost-cutting efforts come at a challenging time for the consumer technology company, which said its fourth-quarter cost and expenses rose 22% year-over-year to $25.8 billion, while overall sales fell. by 4% to $32 billion.
Meta’s core advertising business continues to face headwinds from factors such as a tough digital advertising market, the lingering effects of Apple’s 2021 iOS privacy update and increased competition from ByteDance-owned TikTok.
Meanwhile, the company continues to invest heavily in the development of the meta universe, which Meta believes could be the next frontier for basic computing. The company’s Reality Labs unit, which makes the virtual and augmented reality technologies needed for the metaverse, posted $727 million in revenue in the fourth quarter, but also posted an operating loss of $4.28 billion.
Zuckerberg said he would “take responsibility” for the company’s previously announced cost-cutting plans, saying he viewed layoffs “as a last resort.”
“We are restructuring teams to improve our efficiency,” Zuckerberg said last fall when Meta announced the layoffs. “But these measures alone will not bring our costs in line with revenue growth, so I have also made the difficult decision to let people go.”
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