Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has disclosed plans to suspend hiring and reorganize some departments within the business, according to Bloomberg. The organization formerly known as Facebook is preparing to scale back after ten years of rapid development.
Meta plans to cut budgets within the company, including those for the teams it just invested in. In recent months, Meta has put a lot of emphasis on Virtual Reality and building its own metaverse. It is also rushing to develop short-form video products, like reels, that can compete with TikTok.
Meta is far from the only tech company downsizing at the moment, but a hiring freeze still signals relatively dire times for the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
As the global economy continues to deteriorate, many digital businesses are preparing for a difficulty. However, Meta is also dealing with new challenges to its advertising business; most notably the iOS privacy improvements that Apple introduced last year.
Read more: Mark Zuckerberg no longer among 10 richest Americans – Forbes
In a July internal meeting, Zuckerberg warned that the company was headed for one of the “biggest downturns that we’ve seen in recent history”; and that he would be slowing recruiting as a precaution. The corporation had already selectively halted hiring within some organizations, but the global employment freeze ushers in a new era.
“I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you; and that self-selection is OK with me,” Zuckerberg said in the internal call this summer. “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.”
