Many employees at Facebook (now known as Meta) are
reportedly expecting more job cuts at Mark Zuckerberg’s company
following the latest round of employee performance reviews in which
thousands of workers received subpar ratings.
The Wall Street Journal reports
that in a recent round of performance reviews, Facebook gave thousands
of employees subpar ratings, indicating that additional job cuts may be
coming soon. Senior executives have taken several actions to reduce the
company’s bonus metric after CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 to be a “year of efficiency.”
Mark Zuckerberg Meta Selfie (Facebook)
Mark Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill (Getty/Chip Somodevilla) Facebook management reportedly anticipates that the low ratings will
cause more employees who see the writing on the wall to resign in the
upcoming weeks, and if not enough do, the business may consider more layoffs. 13 percent of the company’s employees, or about 11,000 workers, were recently let go.
About 10 percent of employees received ratings from Facebook managers
indicating they were underperforming, this percentage is not unusual in
the years prior to the pandemic. However, several people with knowledge
of the situation noted that Facebook’s workforce nearly doubled from
2019 to 2022, to 86,400. About half of its employees have never
participated in a typical performance-review cycle at the company.
In conjunction with their performance reviews, Facebook informed
employees that the company’s performance, a factor in employee bonuses,
would be paid out at 85 percent of its target. According to people
familiar with past bonus figures, this figure — one of three used to
determine each employee’s annual bonus — was down at least 15 percentage
points from the previous year and fell below 100 percent for the first
time since the first half of 2018.
Facebook has struggled
over the past 18 months due to a harsh economic environment, increasing
competition from TikTok, and a decline in advertising demand spurred by
Apple’s privacy changes.
Since focusing on artificial intelligence technologies in 2022 to
enhance its ad-targeting and content-recommendation tools, the company’s
prospects have started to improve.
The effects of Apple’s ad-tracking changes, which the social media
company predicted would cost it $10 billion in revenue in 2022, have
been a source of contention for Facebook since April 2021. Facebook has
experienced year-over-year revenue declines over the last three
quarters. Marne Levine served as the company’s chief business officer
during that time. On Monday, she announced that she would be leaving her
position and the company this summer.
Facebook announced layoffs
in November in response to its difficult financial situation.
Additionally, it cut back on office space, had some employees share
desks, and extended a hiring freeze until the first quarter of 2023.
These changes appear to be having an effect, with Facebook reporting a
net profit of $4.7 billion for the fourth quarter, an increase from the
third quarter, despite ongoing revenue declines. That ended a run of
three quarters during which the company’s profit declined from the
previous quarter — a slump unlike any it had seen in the past decade.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Source: Breitbart