Meta, the parent organisation of Facebook and WhatsApp have been on a firing spree for as far back as 2022. While these retrenchments were mostly due to cutting operational costs and reducing redundancy, this does not seem to be the case with a recent batch of layoffs as the big tech company has reportedly fired several workers for misusing their meal credits.
According to the Financial Times the $25 meal credits, as their name suggests, are supposed to be used for food only. But these workers, two dozen of them in Los Angeles, decided to use the meal credits for household items that clearly aren’t food. The household items include acne pads, wine glasses and laundry detergent according to the report.
This is coming just days after the company said it is laying off employees across its subsidiaries including Instagram, WhatsApp and Reality Labs, according to people familiar with the matter. According to a Meta spokesperson who spoke to Reuters, Meta is only making changes to the teams in order to align with the company’s long-term strategic goals and location strategy.
Meta’s job-cutting drive
Meta has been on a job-cutting drive since 2022, a venture that has seen it slash more than 21,000 jobs since November 2022. The company said this was in a bid to keep its operational costs low.
In November 2022, the Facebook parent body announced that it was slashing 11,000 jobs in one fell swoop. Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg described it as the most difficult change the company has made in Meta’s history.
The CEO also pointed out that the cuts which cut across its social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, represented 13 per cent of its workforce. He also noted that the cuts would affect its research lab focusing on the metaverse.
Indeed, the 2022 job cuts came at a time when the tech industry found itself in an unprecedented decline. Several big tech companies like Google also announced major layoffs at the time, with Twitter owner, Elon Musk, announcing that he had fired half of the company’s workforce.
The decline came as a result of advertisers looking to cut costs as they struggled with inflation and rising interest rates. Mark Zuckerberg, however, admitted to having miscalculated at the time, telling the fired staff that he had expected the boost in e-commerce and online activity during the Covid pandemic to continue.
“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that. I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted” Zuckerberg said in a note to staff.
The CEO would, however, go on to style 2023 as the “Year of Efficiency”, and has since recorded the same number of job cuts as he did in November 2022. They appear to be paying dividends though as Meta shares have jumped more than 60% this year.
In its most recent second-quarter results, Meta crushed market expectations for revenue and issued a rosy sales forecast for the third quarter. The company went on to assure shareholders that robust digital ad spending on its social media platforms can cover the cost of its artificial intelligence investments.
