Mark Zuckerberg-owned Meta will be laying off employees on Wednesday morning, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
The announcement was made by the CEO on Tuesday morning while addressing hundreds of executives at the company headquarters, foreshadowing large cuts.
Though it is uncertain how many will be asked to go, the WSJ expects the numbers to be in the thousands, making it the largest of the year to date in the tech sector.
Wednesday’s layoff would be the first broad reduction to occur in the company’s 18-year history.
Meta’s head of human resources Lori Goler has assured that the retrenched employees will be provided with at least four months of salary as severance, the newspaper reported citing people familiar with the meeting.
At the meeting, Zuckerberg took responsibility for the overstaffing, which, he said, was due to his optimism about the company’s growth prospects.
He has specifically mentioned layoffs among business and recruitment teams. The job cuts is expected to start around 6 am Eastern time on Wednesday, with the specific employees losing their jobs informed over the course of the morning.
Watch | WION Business News | Meta preparing large-scale layoffs: Reports
Meta in September reported more than 87,000 employees are working. According to WSJ, company officials have already told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week.
Also read | Twitter users may soon have to pay more than $8 as Musk deliberates a paywall
Last month, investors wiped $80bn off the company’s market value after it reported profits had halved during the third quarter.
Meta’s stock has fallen more than 70 per cent this year on the back of disappointing earning reports in the third quarter. In February, it lost $230bn in market value, making it the biggest one-day loss in the history of a US company.
Also read | After Twitter, now Facebook parent company Meta will undergo massive layoffs: Report
Notably, Meta is not the only tech company that has announced job cuts. Twitter Inc. has laid off thousands of employees as its new boss Elon Musk tries to shore up the revenues and restructure the company.
Snap Inc., too, in August indicated that it is looking to cut around 20 per cent of staff, or more than 1,000 employees, to prepare for what it said would be an expected period of low sales growth lasting into 2023.
(With inputs from agencies)
WATCH WION LIVE HERE:
