Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer

Meta Cuts 13% of its Workforce, Costing 11000 Jobs

Meta has recently announced a 13% reduction in its workforce, the most major mass layoffs in the company’s 18-year existence. Meta (previously known as Facebook) is the parent firm of numerous famous applications, including WhatsApp and Instagram.

The company is believed to have around 87,000 workers at the end of September, of whom more than 11,000 would be laid off throughout its portfolio. The computer sector is seeing its worst-ever employee decline. Elon Musk, Twitter’s new CEO, laid off roughly 3,700 workers worldwide last week, with certain nations faring worse than others. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a message to Meta workers that the company’s hiring freeze would extend until the first quarter of 2023.

What does this signify for Zuckerberg’s Plans for the Metaverse?

Metaverse is simply a virtual environment that relies on XR (Extended Reality) techniques like AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), and MR (Microwave Reality) (Mixed Reality). Late last year, Zuckerberg relaunched Facebook as Meta Platforms and outlined his plans to create a metaverse. Meta also owns Reality Labs (previously known as Oculus), so it has all of the components for a successful metaverse. However, Zuckerberg’s ideas to develop Metaverse remain far from becoming a reality.

In Q3 2022, Zuckerberg’s metaverse aspirations cost him $3.7 billion in losses. At the time, Zuckerberg said that it would be a mistake for them to not concentrate on any of these areas that he believe will be fundamentally essential for the future.

Zuckerberg also said that these losses would continue to rise until 2023 but that his strategy would pay benefits. While today’s announcement merely provides a snapshot of the layoffs and their implications for the company’s metaverse goals, Zuckerberg restated his commitment to “high-priority growth areas.”

***