There doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel for tech layoffs, with Meta likely planning to cut thousands more jobs from its workforce as early as this week.
Once the pandemic had subsided, tech CEOs blindly and obliviously started hiring in huge numbers. However, due to a lack of common-sense foresight on the part of these CEOs, the economic upturn didn't last long, and hundreds of thousands of employees have lost their jobs as a result.
The trend continues, as reports out of Meta point to another round of layoffs that could see even more employees outsted from their positions as soon as this week.
Meta Planning for More Layoffs
According to “people familiar with the matter” in a report from Bloomberg, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — one of the largest social media employers in the world — is planning to lay off thousands of employees as early as this week.
These aren't the first major round of layoffs from Meta either. In November, the social media company let go of nearly 11,000 employees, which amounted to approximately 13% of its workforce. Meta is also experimenting with a wide range of cost cutting measures, including asking its many managers to stop managing and take lower level positions in the company.
All these firings have been part of Meta's “year of efficiency,” a term Mark Zuckerberg has been happy to use in the face of these historic cuts. The anonymous sources told Bloomberg that the looming threat of layoffs has had a decidedly negative impact on the morale and mental health of workers at Meta.
Tech Layoffs Abound
The tech industry alone is now responsible for more than 100,000 layoffs in the last few months. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Intel, and dozens of others have been slashing workforces to facilitate this leaner strategy being adopted.
Subsequently, the general consensus across the tech industry — and the global economy as a whole — is that virtually no job is safe, resulting in the atmosphere of distrust and resentment that could have long-lasting effects for the industry.
“I think people should come out of this learning and remembering that we have to trust ourselves before anyone or anything else.” – a recruiter for a large tech firm told Fortune
The sentiment is hard to argue with. While tech was long considered the safest and most lucrative gig you can get, this inability to forecast basic economic trends at the expense of hundreds of thousands of employees doesn't inspire much confidence. All that to say, the so-called geniuses of the tech industry clearly don't know enough to protect your job, or worse, they're apathetic to the plight of the people powering their companies.
