Meta Plans To Cut Thousands

Following the lead of rival social media outlet Twitter, Facebook-owner Meta reportedly plans large-scale layoffs that could hit thousands of employees this week.  

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, the announcements that "many thousands of people" will be cut could come as soon as Wednesday. Meta says it employs 87,000.

The WSJ report said Meta has told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week. It would be the first large reduction of employees in the company's 18-year history.

Rivals Initiate Layoffs

The round of layoffs by Meta follows that of rival Twitter. The new owner of privately held Twitter, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, is cutting half the staff, or 3,700 people. But reports over the weekend said Twitter asked some laid off workers to come back.

Further, Amazon last week said it would pause corporate hiring. Among other companies, ride-hailing company Lyft said it would cut 700 jobs, about 13% of its workforce.

Also, Stripe last week said it expects to cut 14% of staff. Reports cited a note Chief Executive Patrick Collison sent to his staff. In it, he cited "stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets and sparser startup funding."

GoodRx to lay off 140 employees or roughly 16% of its workforce

GoodRx approves a reduction in force involving approximately 140 employees or roughly 16% of its workforce, primarily in its tech-focused and marketing groups

 

• This action is part of the Company's initiatives to re-balance its investments and cost structure into prioritized areas that it believes will drive incremental long-term growth and improve margins, consistent with its comments during its Q2 earnings call.
• Co expects to incur pre-tax charges of between approximately $5-7 mln for the reduction in force, substantially all of which is expected to be incurred in Q3.

Shopify to cut 1,000 workers

Shopify announced it will cut roughly 1,000 workers, or 10% of its global workforce, as its chief executive took responsibility for a faulty growth strategy.

Shopify's revenue growth has decelerated for five straight quarters as the coronavirus pandemic fades and online shopping normalizes.

In a blog, Chief Executive Tobi Lütke took responsibility for over-estimating Shopify's growth.

"We bet that the channel mix — the share of dollars that travel through ecommerce rather than physical retail — would permanently leap ahead by 5 or even 10 years," Lutke wrote. "We couldn't know for sure at the time, but we knew that if there was a chance that this was true, we would have to expand the company to match."

Shopify sets up e-commerce websites for businesses and partners with others to handle digital payments and shipping.

Most merchant customers of Shopify target the consumer market. However, Shopify plans a move into business-to-business commerce.

The majority of layoffs will occur in the recruiting, support and sales units, he said.