Meta Stock Price Plummets As Facebook Plans To Layoff Thousands Of Workers

LAGOS (CoinChapter.com) — Facebook’s parent company Meta is set to become the latest company to implement job cuts as rising inflation and economic recession continue to take a toll on the tech industry.

In detail, a new report has revealed that Facebook (Meta) is planning to begin laying off thousands of workers. The layoffs are expected to begin as soon as Wednesday and could be one of the largest in recent years.

Meta at the end of September reported more than 87,000 employees and large-scale layoffs could result in another whirlpool in the tech space similar to the one initiated by Twitter last week. Recall that Elon Musk’s Twitter laid off an estimated 3,700 employees following his acquisition of the social media platform.

However, the new development comes after Meta announced a hiring freeze in September. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO had also hinted at the impending layoffs in a Facebook post on October 26, 2022. He explained that the company would be focusing investment on a number of high-priority growth areas.

“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas. That means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”

Mark Zuckerberg said.

Meta Stock Price Plummets 75% YTD

Meanwhile, the proposed layoffs come as Facebook(Meta) is grappling with a negative turn in the market exacerbated by heavy investments in its metaverse business.

Meta stock price have plummeted by almost 75% this year, falling to their lowest since early 2016. The social media giant is also currently the worst performer in the S&P 500 in 2022. Furthermore, a weak holiday quarter also impacted Meta’s revenue wiping $67 billion off the company’s stock market value.

Moreover, stronger competition from other social platforms like TikTok and Twitch has also impacted Meta’s revenue negatively.

In fact, the massive downtrend has pushed some of Meta’s(Facebook) investors to call for a reduction in the company’s 87,000 workforce. The investor believes that Meta’s spending and pivot to the metaverse have affected its growth.

However, it is worth noting that Meta stock on the day was up by almost 2% and trading at $90.8.

Other Layoffs Recorded In The Tech Space

Meanwhile, although Meta is the latest tech company to sack workers, many other major tech companies have also had to subscribe to large-scale layoffs this year. Here are some of them:

Chime: an online financial services company has announced that it will lay off 12% of its staff. The job cuts is expected to affect 160 members of the company’s 1,300 employees.

Stripe: a payment services provider also announced plans to cut 14% of its workforce. Notably, around 1,120 of its 8,000 employees as of October, would be affected by the job cut.

Lyft: a ride-sharing platform will also lay off 13% of its staff, according to a letter from company officials. The job cuts will reportedly affect approximately 650 employees (13% of its 5,000 staff, not including its contracted drivers). It is worth noting that this marks the company’s second round of layoffs this year. Lyft already laid off around 60 workers in July.

Intel is reportedly looking to cut thousands of employees, including 20% in its sales and marketing departments. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced plans to cuts about 1% of its 180,000 workers. Similarly, Oracle is laying off 201 employees, according to multiple outlets, citing documents filed to the state’s Employment Development Department.

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