Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staffers that the company has put a freeze on hiring and plans to reduce its number of employees, kickstarting the media conglomerate’s first restructuring since 2004, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
The cost-cutting changes were announced during a weekly Q&A meeting with staffers, according to Bloomberg, in which the Meta boss noted that the company will reorganize teams to both cut expenses and prioritize company goals. He also said Meta will reduce its current size by 2023.
News of the hiring freeze comes two months after the CEO said that the company planned to “steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year” on an earnings call, and warned that “Many teams are going to shrink.”
“Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year,” Zuckerberg said on the June call. “Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas, and I wanted to give our leaders the ability to decide within their teams where to double down, where to backfill attrition, and where to restructure teams while minimizing thrash to the long term initiatives.”
Bloomberg also reported that most teams at Meta will face budget cuts, and that decisions for how to reduce staffing, which might include layoffs, will be left up to individual teams.
Meta’s restructuring mirrors similar moves from Tech competitors like Google parent Alphabet, which has slowed hiring since June; and Snap, which laid off 20% of its employees in August.
A spokesperson for Meta did not not comment on the news and instead referred TheWrap to Zuckerberg’s June announcement.
“This is a period that demands more intensity, and I expect us to get more done with fewer resources,” he said at the time. “We’re currently going through the process of increasing the goals for many of our efforts. … I expect we’ll find a way to keep investing in our top priority areas, and I think we’re going to come through this period as a stronger and more disciplined organization.”