Source: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/meta-layoff-thousands-of-employees-in-may/4070910/
Meta is planning to lay off 10% of its workforce in May, and more layoffs are planned later in the year, according to a report.
Sources told Reuters that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will lay off nearly 8,000 employees in May, with more layoffs planned later in the year.
The report of job cuts comes as meta has been spending less on virtual reality and more on AI.
Business and Tech Reporter Scott Budman said Meta hired a lot of people during and after the pandemic to be part of the metaverse. But that hasn’t really worked out.
“Now, we know that the Metaverse is really not going to pan out all that much and turns out to be a flop, so it’s a lot of people that were working in this area that took billions of dollars in investment that didn’t work out, so many of those people are likely to lose their jobs unless they can move into something that’s more current like AI,” he said.
Several big companies have laid off workers recently.
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, announced this week plans cut a thousand workers, citing AI-driven efficiencies.
“Salesforce has announced some cuts, Oracle cut a lot of people and some of these cuts were blamed on AI, Block, Jack Dorsey’s Company cut about 40% of its workforce and he came right out and said 'AI is doing a lot of these jobs better and less expensively than humans',” Budman said.
And that's a dire warning to college students hoping to get a tech job.
“It’s not gonna stop, this is just the beginning. And what we have seen so far from the companies is contagious,” said Ahmad Banafa, engineering professor at San Jose State.
Banafa says he urges his students to use AI.
“Don’t be left behind. I mean, if you see any kind of new tools in AI, any new projects by the big name, by OpenAI or Google, go and learn it. Get certifications, take classes that would make you in the front of the line when it comes to hiring,” he said.
NBC Bay Area reached out to Meta regarding this report, but the company said they have no comments at this time.
Meta to cut 8000 jobs (10% workforce) in May. More layoffs ahead as AI shift accelerates
byu/callsonreddit inwallstreetbets
Posted by callsonreddit
40 Comments
So calls?
Meanwhile : lets make war thousands of kms away.
It still amazes me that no political action have been taken to stop these layoffs while they make billions in net benefice
In todays time this is good news. Stock will probably go up.
Mark Suckaturd needing mo moneys
Look at Oracle up 30% since layoffs
As much as people hate layoffs, the FAANG software engineers have been some of the most entitled human beings on the planet. In almost every case where I’ve worked with ex-FAANG people, I have been completely unimpressed since when they come into an organization where they actually have to code and do something, they flop.
Most of these people were just empire building and figuring out ways to become a Project manager and tell people what to do, at extraordinarily high salaries. Literally people who’s job is to make a button change color from green to blue based on some statistics, and getting paid $250K a year for it.
Fire all these lames with haste.
How much of this is just firing the mass hires they were doing these past few years just to buy up all the labor supply and keep them away from their competitors. Now they realise they don’t need them so BYE BYE
Layoffs make big headlines, hiring does not. META’s all-time high headcount was around 86,000 employees in mid-2022, since then they’ve undertaken several rounds of mass layoffs. Yet, their current headcount is ~79,000 – almost 40k higher than what they had pre-pandemic. You’ll see the same trend across tech. There is constant churn, continuous firing and hiring at the same time.
20% this year another 20% next year
Fire 100 % employees and let the stock jump 1000%
Here’s another reminder that after 8000 more layoffs Meta will have 50% more employees than in 2019.
Just how greedy can one man get.
Meta calls it is then
Zuckerberg made a poor decision to invest big in metaversa and it flopped. Now those employees are fired and the decision makers gets to keep his job? Where is the accountability?
Bullish
People pretend AI is taking jobs when really these employees didn’t do any work anyways
Nice long META. If each employee was making an average of 200k, that’s 1.6 billion dollars in net savings.
They should do whatever they have to do to get that stock over $1000
These techies have been making $200k-$400k a year for years, they’ll probably get 6 months of severance on top of what they’ve already saved, they’ll be fine
imagine working there and having this hang over your head for weeks. “is it gonna be me? is it gonna be my teammembers?” just so cruel. do it and don’t broadcast it publicly like this jfc
The world is changing
I interviewed twice for Meta
For data center ops manager roles. Both times I was interviewing it went silent from recruiter and ops managers inteeviewing me. Not because i didnt get the job but because both times the recruiter team and managers got laid off. I saw their linkedin status go to looking cor work and messsaged tbem
And was told “ya we all got axed”
Didnt experts say AI wont destroy jobs?
Many smugly once said “learn to code” in response to labor and hiring issues during the 2010s
I say to them “learn to drive Forklift”
Another Shrek candle; great! 🚀
A trillion dollar company only employing 80k employees, is that for real? So much power handed to them for provided nothing in return
The firings will continue until morale improves.
Probably letting go the worst of the people
Hiring back better or cheaper help
If I identity as Ai, can I get a job?
My grandma is throwing away 20% of stuff she bought during COVID citing AI efficiency gains. Her stocks are up 15%.
Bullish af. Buy calls
Wow
Bullish
Disgusting
They’re spending a lot money on AI. So, they have to cut costs to maintain margins. It’s unfortunate that these cuts have to come from head count. But they can always hire more people if needed when the spending on AI slows down.
Good
Social media is all just bots talking to itself anyways, might as well have the management be AI aswell.
from an outside perspective, they’re obviously very bloated. AI capex was just a push to cut their fat. way too many people fighting for ‘scope’ rather than organic development
These companies aren’t laying off because of AI. They’re laying off because they’ve run out of ideas for how to innovate. They’re have no idea how to grow revenue in a novel way besides fucking data collection and ads.
It should be shameful for companies when they do this. I believe they should have to cut as much C level ANd sell as much comply stock as they cut of normal workers.