Facebook Owner Meta Cuts Hiring Plans By 30 Per Cent On Economic Slowdown Risks

Meta has reduced its target for hiring engineers in 2022 to around 7,000, down from an initial plan to hire about 10,000 new engineers, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Meta is bracing for a leaner second half of the year, as it copes with macroeconomic pressures and data privacy hits to its ads business, the report said.

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Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, has cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30 per cent this year, according to a report by Reuters. According to the report, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees about the decision as he warned them to brace for a deep economic slowdown. “If I had to bet, I'd say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we've seen in recent history," Zuckerberg told workers in a weekly employee Q&A session.

Meta has reduced its target for hiring engineers in 2022 to around 7,000, down from an initial plan to hire about 10,000 new engineers, he said.

The company confirmed hiring pauses in broad terms last month, but exact figures have not previously been reported.

Zuckerberg also said the company was leaving certain positions unfilled in response to attrition and “turning up the heat” on performance management to weed out staffers unable to meet more aggressive goals. “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn't be here,” he said.

"Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn't for you, and that self-selection is OK with me," he said.

The social media and technology company is bracing for a leaner second half of the year, as it copes with macroeconomic pressures and data privacy hits to its ads business, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The company must "prioritize more ruthlessly" and "operate leaner, meaner, better executing teams," Chief Product Officer Chris Cox wrote in the memo, which appeared on the company's internal discussion forum Workplace before the Q&A.

"I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce. We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets," Cox wrote.

The memo was "intended to build on what we've already said publicly in earnings about the challenges we face and the opportunities we have, where we're putting more of our energy toward addressing," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

In anticipation of a possible US recession, tech companies across the board have scaled back their ambitions. Although the slide in stock price at Meta has been more severe than its competitors, Apple and Google.