Meta to reduce hiring in cost-cutting push

Meta Platforms Inc. said on Wednesday that it would slow or pause hiring as the company reckons with its weakest revenue growth on record.

The tech giant explained that it re-evaluates its talent pipeline according to needs. The slower growth of the workforce is in light of the expense guidance given for this earnings period.

Subsequently, the social media platform aims to impede hiring for most mid-level and senior-level roles. At the same time, it hampered plans to add entry-level engineers in recent weeks. Moreover, recruiters have started pausing their efforts to fill specific positions.

In its financial report last week, Meta expected a potential year-over-year revenue drop in the second quarter. This dampened outlook came after it reported its slowest revenue growth in a decade.

CFO David Wehner highlighted several issues facing the company. Thus, the firm expected budget for expenses would be between $87.00 billion and $92.00 billion this year. This projection declined from a previous forecast of $90.00 billion to $95.00 billion.

Conflicts began to emerge last year as users abandoned Facebook’s applications. In February, the business said its daily active users declined sequentially for the first time in the fourth quarter.

Nevertheless, the number slightly ticked back up in the first quarter of 2022.

However, the digital media business took a hit due to macroeconomic concerns and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Meta explained that the firm experiences further deceleration in growth following the start of the geopolitical crisis. As a result, it recorded a loss of revenue in Moscow. It also posted lower advertising demand both within Europe and outside the region.

The Facebook owner also reiterated that Apple’s privacy changes on its iOS devices last year would hurt growth. The business had already predicted that the move would reduce revenue by $10.00 billion this year.

Meta’s first physical store

Meanwhile, on the same day, Meta gave an early preview of its first physical store. The outlet features a floor-to-ceiling screen showing off games on its virtual reality headsets. It also offered rooms for testing video calling devices.

The store will open on May 9, located at the main campus for Meta’s Reality Labs unit in California.

The department focuses on building the hardware products the firm aims to sell. Examples of the goods are Ray-Ban smart glasses, Portal video-calling devices, and Oculus VR headsets.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited that the metaverse could be the world’s next big computing platform.

Nevertheless, he has warned that it may take about a decade for its bets to pay off.

In the meantime, the social media titan slashed some of its long-term investments to cope with the slowing growth.