Is Meta Going To Find “Scapegoats” And Fire Them?

All major tech companies are preparing for leaner times ahead. Tesla has already announced that it would cut off 3.5% of its employees worldwide. Facebook seems to be the next. As The Information reported, Maher Saba, Meta’s VP for Remote Presence has requested their managers to find out which Meta employees in their teams “need support”. Moreover, he told managers to “move to exit” poor performers “who are unable to get on track.” Though many of you will say this is a common practice and those employees that don’t perform well, should leave their positions. But it seems we are dealing with something worse than it might seem at first sight.

According to a whistleblower, who talked to The Washington Post, this could be a “performance improvement plan” that usually ends up resulting in mass layoffs. In this regard, we should also quote Saba’s words: “If a direct report is coasting or is a low performer, they are not who we need; they are failing this company. As a manager, you cannot allow someone to be net neutral or negative for Meta.”

Meta Has Been Showing Signs Of Decline Long Ago

Earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg warned employees during a Q&A session that Meta is experiencing “one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history.” Probably, you have heard that Meta is slowing hiring this year. The Meta CEO also said that they are going to raise the expectations on their employees. Plus, they will give them more aggressive goals. “I think some of you might decide that this place isn’t for you, and that self-selection is okay with me. Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” he said.

Meta commenced cutting costs due to weak revenue forecasts a few months ago. It even announced to cancel some of its metaverse initiatives. Facebook has been losing daily active users in the fourth quarter of the past year. In the first quarter, it could recuperate a little. But the company thinks its revenue will drop in part because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Apart from this, Meta foresees to lose $10 billion in revenue due to the changes in Apple’s privacy settings on iOS. As you remember, the latter limits advertisers’ activity in terms of ad targeting.