BENGALURU: After microblogging site Twitter sacked nearly 3,500 employees worldwide, including 180 in India, various reports suggest Facebook-parent company Meta and edtech major Unacademy too will announce layoffs soon.
A report carried by a news agency said the company will begin layoffs this week and that it might affect thousands of employees. Meta has over 87,000 employees worldwide. Last month when Meta announced its third-quarter results, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, in 2023, the company will focus investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas.
This means some teams will grow and most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year, indicating layoffs in the coming months. “We expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organisation than we are today,” Zuckerberg said.
The layoffs come at a time when the company is struggling with growing losses. It has also invested heavily in the metaverse business. Meta’s Q3 total revenue stood at $27.7 billion, down 4% or up to 2% on a constant currency basis. Also, its pace of hiring slowed in the third quarter. Meta added only 3,700 net new hires in the third quarter down from Q2 net additions of 5,700.
Last week Twitter fired over 3,500 employees or half of its workforce. Though reports suggest it called back a few employees, a former employee in India said nobody was asked to return. Of nearly 250 people, about 180 people were fired in India. In India, edtech companies have been laying off people citing fund crunch. After Byju’s announced firing of 2,500 staff, Unacademy will fire 10% of its workforce- close to 350 employees.
In a mail to employees, Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal said, “Funding has significantly slowed down and a large portion of our core business has moved offline... around 10% of Unacademy employees across the group will be impacted because of this, and if you are one of the impacted-you will be receiving a detailed communication within 48 hours from HR.” The firm plans to give severance pay equivalent to a notice period and an additional two months to fired employees.
Munjal has also spoken about harsh economic conditions in the mail. "These are very difficult times for the technology ecosystem. And things are getting worse with each passing day," he added.
Tech giants laying off is a sign for all the companies and employees to brace themselves for layoffs, said Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD and CEO of CIEL HR Services. "Meta planning to layoff is a sign that tech companies are evolving and no company can remain on top forever," he added.
Edtech platform Practically and B2B ecommerce start-up Udaan too laid off many employees in the last one week.