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Meta confirms hiring freeze, warns workers of restructuring, possible downsizing

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Employees at Meta Platforms Inc., parent company of both Facebook and Instagram, learned Thursday that a companywide hiring freeze is pending and that some teams will be restructured to accommodate priority shifts and belt-tightening measures.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the personnel tweaks during a weekly Q&A session with employees, a person attending the session told Bloomberg, which first reported the pending restructuring.

The session attendee also told Bloomberg that Zuckerberg said the social networking company plans to reduce budgets across most teams but give individual teams leeway in determining how to handle “headcount changes.”

“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg said, according to remarks reviewed by Bloomberg.

According to The Verge, Meta’s restructuring and potential cuts have been prompted by the “slowing global economy and Apple’s ad tracking changes,” punctuated by a stock price that has plummeted by more than half in 2022.

In May, Zuckerberg announced a hiring freeze affecting select segments of Meta, noting he could offer no guarantees against future layoffs.

In a June Q&A session, reported by The Verge, he told employees: “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here ... And part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might just say that this place isn’t for you. And that self-selection is OK with me.”

Asked by The Verge about Thursday’s meeting, Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold declined to comment but pointed toward comments from Zuckerberg during the last Meta earnings call, where he said, “Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year. Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas.”