Meta slashes jobs at WhatsApp and Instagram in latest round of cuts on

Meta is laying off employees across units including Instagram, WhatsApp and Reality Labs, the Verge reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

A Meta spokesperson told Reuters in a statement that a few of its teams were making changes to align with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.

‘This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like these when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees,’ the spokesperson said.

The Verge report did not specify the exact number of job cuts but mentioned that they were small. Meta also did not comment on the numbers.

Meta has slashed around 21,000 jobs since November 2022 to keep costs low with CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling 2023 the ‘Year of Efficiency’.

Meta shares have jumped more than 60% this year, and are currently at an all-time high, after he cancelled several low-priority projects in an attempt to boost growth and allay investors’ fears that he spent far too much money on the metaverse, the failed attempt to build a virtual world for its VR headsets.

In its most recent second quarter results, Meta beat market expectations for revenue and issued a rosy sales forecast for the third quarter, signalling that robust digital-ad spending on its social media platforms can cover the cost of its artificial-intelligence investments.

Though Meta’s growth has been healthy, the tech sector has been cutting jobs for the last two years.

Intel made some of the deepest cuts of any company, culling 15,000 jobs, around 15% of its global workforce, in August to save $10billion, its CEO Pat Gelsinger told employees.

The Register reported just last month that 113-year-old IBM was quietly let go thousands of people from their jobs, which according to a source ‘was done in secret.’

‘My manager told me that they were required to sign an NDA not to talk about the specifics’, they told the outlet.

Apple took the rare step of cutting around 100 jobs in its digital services group, Bloomberg reported in last August.

While cuts were made to some engineering roles, the majority of layoffs were amde to the team that ran the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore.

Layoffs were also seen in other teams, including the one that runs Apple News.

Separately, the Financial Times reported that Meta fired another two dozen staff in Los Angeles for allegedly using their daily $25 meal credits to instead buy household items including acne pads, wine glasses and laundry detergent.

A person familiar with the matter told the newspaper that those who were fired were long-time rule breakers, while anyone who occasionally broke the rules were reprimanded but not sacked.

They added that some people had been pooling their money together, while others were getting meals sent home even though the credits are only allowed to be used for office work.

These terminations are separate from the team restructurings and took place last week, the FT report said.

Meta declined to comment on the FT report.