Facebook-owner Meta is cutting plans to hire engineers by at least 30% as CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned employees to brace for a deep economic downturn.
“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 an employee Q&A session audio, according to Reuters.
Meta has reduced its target for hiring engineers in 2022 to around 6,000-7,000, down from an initial plan to hire about 10,000 new engineers.
Besides cutting new hirings, the San Francisco company is also leaving certain positions unfilled and “turning up the heat” to weed out underperforming staff.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg 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.”
Meta is one of the big tech firms that has disappointed investors at the start of the year. The world’s biggest social media company also lost about half its market value.
