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Meta is planning a fresh round of job cuts, report claims

By Trevor Mogg March 7, 2023

Meta is planning to embark on another round of job cuts that could see “thousands” of positions go, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.

The efficiency cuts would follow mass layoffs in November when the California-based company shed 11,000 jobs globally, equal to about 13% of its workforce.

Sources with knowledge of the latest cuts told Bloomberg that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is reshaping its organization to enable it to focus more on developing the so-called metaverse, a world that utilizes virtual reality for work and play and which Meta hopes will prove popular in the coming years.

It’s also aiming to pivot more toward artificial intelligence (AI) products, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing at the end of last month that the company was bringing many of its AI specialists under one roof to form a unified unit in a bid to “turbocharge” its work in a sector that has been receiving much attention in recent months.

On top of the second round of job cuts, which Bloomberg says could be confirmed internally in the next week, Meta is reported to be considering offering some of its managers buyout packages and could also disband entire teams in a bid to streamline its operations and cut costs.

When Zuckerberg announced thousands of layoffs in November, he described the action as “some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” adding that the company was “taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.”

Battling challenging economic conditions, Meta’s job cuts come alongside similar moves by other tech companies that include Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter, Dell, Yahoo, PayPal, and Spotify, among others.

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