Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB), the owner of Facebook, has cut its hiring plans by at least 30% this year, with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg warning workers to prepare for a deep economic downturn.
The social media behemoth, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, reportedly foresees a leaner second half of the year as it contends with macroeconomic pressures and data privacy threats to its advertising business.
"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 employees, according to reports.
Meta will hire 6,000-7,000 engineers in 2022, down from an original plan to hire 10,000, though the social media company reported hiring pauses earlier too.
Meta paused hiring for several verticals in May, including shopping and Messenger Kids, apart from certain engineering roles and low-level data scientists, sparking fears of layoffs among employees.
A number of tech companies have scaled back their ambitions in anticipation of a possible US recession, but the slide in the stock price at Meta has been more dramatic than at competitors Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)'s Google.
After Meta reported that Facebook's main app had experienced a quarterly decline in daily active users for the first time, the world's largest social media company lost about half its market value.
Zuckerberg told employees some positions were left vacant due to attrition and he was "turning up the heat" on performance management to eliminate staffers who were unable to meet more aggressive targets.
The chief added there were a lot of people at the company who shouldn't be there.
In a memo posted on the company's internal discussion forum, chief product officer Chris Cox wrote the company must "prioritize more ruthlessly" and "operate leaner, meaner, better-executing teams".
"I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce. We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets," Cox wrote.
The moves and comments echo those at Tesla, where boss Elon Musk also recently warned staff he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy, turned up the heat on staff and plans to slash permanent job numbers.