After massive layoffs in Twitter, Meta follows its lead with plans of large-scale layoffs this week

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the situation, that Meta Platforms Inc. plans to start mass layoffs this week that will affect thousands of workers. An announcement is expected as early as Wednesday.

Regarding the WSJ report, Meta opted not to comment. In October, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, predicted a dismal holiday quarter and much higher costs in the following year, which will subtract nearly $67 billion from Meta's stock market worth and add to the more than half a trillion dollars in value already lost this year.

The poor prediction comes as Meta struggles to deal with the declining global economy, TikTok's rivalry, Apple's privacy improvements, worries about big spending on the metaverse, and the constant danger of legislation.

According to Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, it will take around ten years for the investments in the metaverse to pay off. To save costs in the interim, he was forced to halt employment, cancel projects, and rearrange personnel.

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"In 2023, we're going to focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas. So 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 organisation than we are today," on the most recent earnings call in late October, Mark Zuckerberg said.

The social media company had reduced its ambitions to hire engineers by at least 30 per cent in June, and Mark Zuckerberg had advised staff to prepare for a slowdown in the economy.

In a previous open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's shareholder Altimeter Capital Management stated that the company needed to streamline by eliminating positions and capital expenditures. They also stated that investors had lost faith in Meta as a result of its increased spending and pivot to the metaverse.

Because of increased interest rates, rising inflation, and a European energy crisis, several technological businesses, including Microsoft Corp., Twitter Inc., and Snap Inc., have reduced employment in recent months.

(With inputs from Reuters)