Meta could cut thousands of jobs, after CEO predicted no more layoffs

$Meta Platforms(META.US)$ is preparing for a fresh round of job cuts, deputizing human resources, lawyers, financial experts and top executives to draw up plans to deflate the company’s hierarchy, in a reorganization and downsizing effort that could affect thousands of workers.

Meta’s newest efforts to cut costs is part of a larger wave of tech companies that have slashed jobs in recent months. Last month, $Alphabet-C(GOOG.US)$ $Alphabet-A(GOOGL.US)$ Google’s parent company Alphabet announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs, which was about 6 percent of its workforce. $Microsoft(MSFT.US)$ also recently announced it was cutting 10,000 employees while $Amazon(AMZN.US)$ said it was eliminating 18,000 workers. ( $Amazon(AMZN.US)$ founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post).

Meta’s business, which relies on advertising, has been hit particularly hard by a steady stream of economic challenges. Some digital advertisers have pulled back on spending as inflation continues to create market instability while the company overestimated the future growth of the e-commerce market. Meta also took a hit when $Apple(AAPL.US)$ introduced new privacy restrictions that forced app-makers to explicitly ask users to track their online activity, hurting the social media giant’s ability to offer targeted advertising.
Meta is also increasingly fending off competition for marketing dollars and users from upstart social media rivals, such as the short-form video network TikTok $ByteDance(FT0001)$ . Last year, the company reported that the flagship Facebook app lost daily users for the first time in its 18-year history, though user growth later recovered. Earlier this month, Meta posted its third straight quarterly revenue decline during the final months of 2022.