Meta Platforms To Pause Hiring, Warns Of Restructuring – Report

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has again signalled that Facebook will be making adjustments in response to the worrying global economic outlook.

Bloomberg reported on corporate communications this week between chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and staff members, in which he said Meta will freeze hiring and “further restructure” amid an uncertain macroeconomic situation.

The sweeping plan is to reorganise teams and reduce headcounts for the first time ever, signalling an end of the era of growth at the social networking giant.

Hiring freeze, restructuring

“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg was quoted by Bloomberg as telling staff during a weekly Q&A session.

Zuckerberg also said on Thursday that Meta would reduce budgets across most teams, and that individual teams will have to resolve how to handle headcount changes, the report added.

In late June Reuters had reported that Meta was bracing for a serious economic downturn and had slashed its hiring plans.

Zuckerberg told staff at the time that Meta has cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30 percent this year, as he warned them to brace for a deep economic downturn.

Meta has reportedly declined to comment on this week’s Bloomberg report, but shared a statement made in a July earnings call, in which Zuckerberg said restructuring would be more of a priority this quarter.

“Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year,” he was quoted as saying. “Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas, and I wanted to give our leaders the ability to decide within their teams where to double down, where to backfill attrition, and where to restructure teams while minimizing thrash to the long-term initiatives.”

Other tech players

It should be noted that Meta and Facebook is not alone, as other tech firms have also issued hiring freeze announcements.

Tesla is already restructuring its operations and is in the process of axing 10,000 jobs, after Elon Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and planned to cut headcount by 10 percent and “pause all hiring worldwide.”

In May it was reported that Microsoft had adopted a more cautious approach to hiring new people, amid growing concern at the global economic situation.

Then Redmond confirmed it had begun cutting less than 1 percent of jobs as part of a structural adjustment.

In July CEO Sundar Pichai warned that Alphabet plans to slow down hiring and consolidate investments through 2023.