Exclusive-Meta cuts its workforce and prepares for "ferocious" headwinds

Meta Platforms Inc, a social media and technology company, has developed a short-video application.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc, notified colleagues on Thursday that this year's recruiting ambitions for engineers would be slashed by at least 30 percent. In addition, he warned them to be prepared for a terrible economic crisis.

Reuters uncovered recordings of a weekly employee Q&A session during which Zuckerberg said, "If I had to gamble, I'd say this may be one of the worst economic downturns we've seen in recent memory."

According to Zuckerberg, Meta has reduced its recruitment goal for engineers in 2022 from 10,000 to between 6,000 and 7,000. Originally, the company intended to hire about 10,000 extra engineers.

Meta confirmed employee freezes in broad terms last month, but specific figures were not previously disclosed.

In addition to reducing recruitment, he said, the company was leaving certain positions unfilled in response to attrition and "turning up the heat" on performance management to weed out staff who were unable to meet ever-more-ambitious goals.

Zuckerberg said, "Realistically, there are a handful of workers that have no business being here."

"Part of my goal in raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, as well as turning up the heat a little, is that some of you may recognize that this is not the right place for you, and that's OK with me," he said.

According to an internal memo acquired by Reuters on Thursday, the social media and technology conglomerate is bracing for a leaner second half of the year as it faces macroeconomic headwinds and data privacy blows to its ad income.

Chief Product Officer Chris Cox claimed in the email, which was shared on the company's internal discussion site Workplace prior to the Q&A, that the organization must "set priorities more brutally" and "manage smaller, meaner, higher-performing teams."

"I must highlight the gravity of the situation and the strength of the headwinds. Teams should not expect big influxes of new engineers and budgets in an environment characterized by slower growth "Cox authored the document.

A Meta official said in a statement that the message was "intended to elaborate on what we've already mentioned publicly in earnings about the challenges we face and the opportunities we have."

In reaction to decreased ad income and user growth this year, Meta's management has already taken measures to cut spending across the majority of the organization.

IT companies have reduced their ambitions in preparation of a possible U.S. recession, but Meta's stock price loss has been more severe than that of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).

Daily active users on Meta's primary Facebook (NASDAQ:META) program saw a quarterly decline for the first time. This year, the market value of the biggest social media company in the world decreased by more than half.

Its austerity drive coincides with two significant strategic pivots: one aimed at refashioning its social media products around "discovery" to compete with short-video app TikTok, and the other an expensive long-term investment on augmented and virtual reality technology.

Cox stated in a memo that Meta would need to increase the number of graphic processing units (GPUs) in its data centers by a factor of five by the end of the year in order to support the "discovery" initiative. This initiative requires additional computing power for artificial intelligence to surface popular Facebook and Instagram posts in users' feeds.

Interest in Meta's comparable to TikTok short video app According to Cox, the amount of time users spend on Reels increased from one year and the next, both in the United States and abroad.

He said that around 80 percent of the rise since March was attributable to Facebook.

It is vital to expand advertisements in Reels "as soon as possible" due to the fact that user engagement with Reels may provide a significant avenue for boosting profits.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive officer, told investors in April that management viewed Reels as "a significant component of the discovery engine strategy," but described the short video transition as a "near-term headwind" that would gradually increase income as advertisers grew accustomed to the format.

Cox said that Meta saw revenue growth potential in corporate communications and in-app purchases, with the latter having the ability to "mitigate signal loss" caused by Apple's privacy restrictions.

The company's hardware division is "laser-focused" on releasing its "Cambria" mixed-reality headset in the second part of the year, according to him.