JAKARTA - Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. announced to employees on Friday, November 11 that they would stop developing smart displays and smartwatches. In addition, it also states that nearly half of the 11,000 jobs removed this week in unprecedented cost cuts is the role of technology.
Speaking during a townhall meeting of employees heard by Reuters, Meta executives also said they were rearranging parts of the company, combining voice and video calling units with other messaging teams and setting up a new division, the Family Foundations, which focuses on difficult engineering issues.
The executives said the first mass layoffs in the history of the 18-year social media company affected staff at each level and at each team, including individuals with high performance ratings.
Overall, 54% of those who were laid off were in a business position and the rest were in a technological role, Meta's head of human resources, Lori Goler, was quoted by Reuters. Meta recruitment teams were cut by almost half.
The executives said a further round of layoffs was not expected. But other expenses should be cut, noting ongoing reviews of contractors, real estate, computing infrastructure and a wide range of products.
The Chief Technology Officer, Andrew Bosworth, who runs the metaverse-oriented realness Labs division, told his staff that Meta would end its work on Portal smart screen devices and on its smartwatches.
Meta has decided earlier this year to stop the marketing of Portal devices, known for video calling capabilities, to consumers and focus on business sales, Bosworth said.
"When the economy declined, executives recently decided to make bigger changes," he said.
"It will only take a long time, and it will take so much investment to get into the company segment, it feels like the wrong way to invest your time and money," Bosworth said.
Portal hasn't become a major revenue earner and attracts privacy concerns from potential users. Meta hasn't revealed any smartwatches yet.
Bosworth said smartwatch units will focus on augmented reality glasses. More than half of the total investment at Reality Labs will augmented reality, he added.
Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, on Friday repeated his apology on Wednesday November 9 about his decision to cut 13% of the workforce. He also confessed to employees that he had failed to forecast Meta's first drop in revenue.
Meta is aggressively employed during the pandemic amid a surge in the use of social media by home-trapped consumers. But their businesses suffered this year as advertisers and consumers stopped spending in the face of soaring costs and soaring interest rates.
The company is also facing growing competition from TikTok and losing access to valuable user data that supports its advertising targeting system after Apple made privacy-oriented changes to its operating system.
"Tren pendapatan jauh lebih rendah dari yang saya diprediksi. Sekali lagi, saya salah. Ini adalah kesalahan besar dalam merencanakan perusahaan. Saya bertanggung jawab untuk itu," kata Zuckerberg.
Going forward, he added, he is not planning to "largely" grow the number of employees of the Reality Labs unit.
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