Facebook Fires 11,000 Employees In One Go; Indian Employees Impacted??

2022 has clearly been the year of sudden unemployment.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has now joined the party.

Official statement

Here’s his statement:

“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”.

It’s time to move on from Zuckerberg on to the people’s lives that he has disrupted.

Meta will let go of 13% of its workforce or more than 11,000 employees.

The same old “cost cutting” exercise

Cost reduction is again being used as an excuse in this case.

Other factors that are troubling the company include disappointing earnings, soaring costs, and a weak advertising market.

These job cuts are the first major budget cut since the founding of Facebook in 2004.

This reflects a sharp slowdown of a behemoth, witnessing a sharp slowdown in popularity, losing out to TikTok.

Other issues at Meta are a diminishing digital advertising revenue, and an economy anticipating recession. 

Taking a gamble with Metaverse

Another very important cause has to be highlighted here.

He changed the name of Facebook to Meta, reflecting Zuck’s vision of Meta which he believed could be the “third internet” or Web 3.o

As The Guardian reports, Meta has spent over $100bn on research and development (R&D) and product development.

He spent $15bn in the last year alone.

What about the Indian staff?

Indian employees can breathe for now since Facebook India Online Services reported gross advertisement revenues of INR 16,189 Cr in financial year 2021-22 (FY22), up 74% year-on-year (YoY) from INR 9,326 Cr in FY21.

These are record numbers for the company.

India continues to be one of the fastest growing digital ad markets in the world, generating a revenue of INR 24,600 Cr in 2021.

This figure is expected to soar to INR 40,300 Cr by 2024 mainly on the back of industries such as banking, financial services and insurance experimenting with non-traditional media platforms.

Hence it’s doubtful whether Meta will let go of its cash cow anytime soon.