A tough time for big tech workers continues:
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday in a written statement that the tech giant would lay off 10,000 more workers, adding to the 11,000 people it laid off back in November. Additionally, around 5,000 open roles that hadn't been filled yet will be closed. In other words, it's a hiring freeze on top of a large number of layoffs.
Zuckerberg acknowledged the cuts in a blog post updating Meta's "Year of Efficiency."
This will be tough and there's no way around that. It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success. They've dedicated themselves to our mission and I'm personally grateful for all their efforts. We will support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.
Amid the layoffs, Meta has also announced that it is stepping away from NFTs to focus on other projects.
According to TechCrunch, Meta's employee head-count came in at around 76,000 after November's layoffs. In the aftermath of this week's job cuts, that would bring the count down to around 66,000.
This is, unfortunately, just part of a wider trend in the world of big tech. Other tech firms of varying sizes like Lyft, Groupon, Vimeo, and Microsoft have all laid off workers in the last year due to broader economic difficulties.
Previously: Meta Employees Brace for Layoffs Ahead of Zuckerberg's Paternity Leave
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Many more Meta workers may be clearing off their desks very soon. Early on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Meta plans to lay off "thousands" of employees, and the first round of staff cuts could be finalized as early as this week, based on anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
[...] The anonymous sources quoted by Bloomberg said this new round of cuts is being driven by declining advertising revenues while it refocuses, again, on its metaverse ambitions. This is an apparent effort to help the company hit certain financial targets for 2023. The company reportedly asked team directors and vice presidents across the company to make up a list of names for those who should get the cut.
[...] In addition to these supposed layoffs, there's a so-called "flattening" happening at the company's Menlo Park headquarters and beyond. Previous reports noted how Meta is putting pressure on middle managers of small teams to either get them to do more grunt work, or otherwise leave the company.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday March 16 2023, @12:35AM (11 children)
as an engineer.
I mean, you worked for Facebook. That's not a great line in a resume to begin with: it doesn't speak highly of your engineering skills unless you can prove otherwise . unlike if you worked as an engineer for Google for example, in which case there's kind of an assumption that you were cherry-picked by the Google head-hunters.
And it doesn't speak highly of your standards to choose whom to work for - although I'll admit, when you need an income, you can't be picky.
But then on top of that, you were chose to be one of the ones Facebook deemed not worth keeping during the latest firing round. When Facebook of all companies thinks you're not good enough to keep on the payroll, surely that's a real blow to anyone's self-confidence.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 16 2023, @01:30AM (2 children)
I remember when tech workers were scoffing at us, telling us that we should have gone into high tech, be that web page engineer, or a real computer scientist. For my part, I moved on to another field of work, grudgingly. I really liked construction work, and it irritated me that I had to change. Now, I'll scoff at the tech workers being laid off. They should have gone into some line of work that wasn't so volatile, right?
No real worries though. The really smart ones with real skills applicable to today's world will land on their feet. The rest can learn how to smile while asking, "Would you like fries with that?"
I understand there are more and more job openings for those who can program robots! Especially those who can program a robot to ask, "Would you like fries with that?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MIRV888 on Thursday March 16 2023, @02:11AM
Being skilled at IT, control systems, & mechanical has always paid well. It's not going to pay less going forward.
My 2 cents
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 16 2023, @04:05PM
I'd never scoff at someone who went into construction: As far as I'm concerned, they're doing the same thing I'm doing, but with physical stuff rather than with bits. And like us techies, you'll always be mistreated and feared by the people who make their living by telling us what to do rather than by doing things.
It's not like construction doesn't also have boom-bust cycles, though: I'm guessing 2009 or so was a rough time for a lot of people who had built up a career of slapping together new homes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @02:47AM
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday March 16 2023, @02:48AM
Interesting -- the scuttlebutt in my region is that Facebook programming interviews are remarkably demanding. Don't know firsthand.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday March 16 2023, @12:24PM (3 children)
Part of what appears to be going on here: There's an investor push to get *all* the big tech companies to announce big layoffs, regardless of whether it makes any sense for the specific company.
But you know what would come out of that? You'd create a significantly-sized population of experienced software engineers who might be desperate enough to take significantly lower pay for doing the same job they did before at another company. Which will lower the going rate for software engineers for all new hires. Which will then be used as negotiating leverage to convince the people who still have jobs at tech megacorps to either accept lower pay or significantly worse working conditions or both (if the people who were hired before all this make a fuss, you make their job suck so much that they quit and are now at another megacorp for that lower pay).
It's almost like they planned it that way. After all, we can't have people who produce things for a living getting paid well to do so, that's money that could be going to MBAs who couldn't write a line of code if their life depended on it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday March 19 2023, @01:48PM (2 children)
The thing is, these "tech companies" aren't really tech worth mentioning. They are concerned with making online platforms for sharing pictures and messages and mining them for information to sell on for a profit.
This will backfire spectacularly. All these people who were kept busy doing that low-value (to society) work are now having to look for better work and to start their own businesses. Losing your job is a very unpleasant experience and I don't wish it on anyone except my worst enemies but this might mean that some real innovation comes along. Hint: learn embedded coding.
Those "tech companies" will find their value declining, and will find it harder to attract the staff they need to keep operating. Usually, these layoffs get rid of too many people and there's a frantic and embarrassed round of re-hiring shortly after.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday March 19 2023, @02:17PM (1 child)
Something I've learned about management types a long time ago: They consider the availability of workers with the skills they want to be Somebody Else's Problem. As in, there's zero connection in their brains between their own behavior and the resumes they're getting in. And you can tell that because their mantra when labor markets in a particular field is "nobody wants to work, they all must be lazy", instead of the truth which is "nobody available wants to work for you, I must have really screwed up".
Part of the reason for that: The layoffs make their stock price go up, the bigger the better. So it's better for the top brass to lay off 10,000 people and quietly re-hire 3,000 of them than it is to lay off 7,000 people.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday March 19 2023, @02:39PM
Yes, they won't pay a penny for training. They'll only hire people with precisely the set of skills they want, and keep them on long enough to just about get the job done. I gave up years ago looking at companies as places I would stay long-term. I join companies for projects. When the project's done, if a suitably interesting new one doesn't come along with the right pay rise, I leave. If they don't train me but expect me to work >25% extra unpaid, I get the CV up to date and plan to jump, for more money.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by guest reader on Thursday March 16 2023, @05:00PM
It could also mean that those who were laid off are not "cocksuckers".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2023, @03:55AM
Around here, it seems a lot of people are impressed if you work for, or managed to work for any of the FAANG companies. It's not something I necessarily agree with, but that's what people seem to think.
I will agree that out of that group, Google seems to be held with highest regard.
(Score: 2, Funny) by MIRV888 on Thursday March 16 2023, @02:14AM (3 children)
Does this mean Meta is failing outright? I got an Oculus II and was very underwhelmed by it. The VR world had the same trolls and jackasses you find elsewhere on the internet. They just had an avatar and a mic in Meta.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday March 16 2023, @09:08AM (2 children)
I gather it is even worse. Most of the (few) people in there are young kids, or spectators waiting for something interesting to happen (it doesn't).
(Score: 3, Funny) by MIRV888 on Thursday March 16 2023, @03:25PM (1 child)
Definitely lots of young kids. Which as a grown man was profoundly creepy.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday March 16 2023, @06:03PM
A friend pointed out the possible issues with kiddo being in a chat room on VR. Kiddo wasn't left alone with the VR headset, but we've since decided "No Home Environment" multiplayer kinds of things. Kiddo likes going around and playing in the SteamVR Home "Environment" scenarios. I was able to play games while kiddo was playing VR on the same computer. What wasn't to love about that. Most of the time it was a bunch of kids yelling random things at each other.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2023, @06:19AM
Ah, Facebook
ahhahahaahahahahahahaahha
We knew you so well
ha ha ha ha ha
You knew us
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahhahhahhaha
We had fun
har har har
Lots of fun
hahahahaahahah
bye
hahaahahah
hahaha