Meta’s latest round of layoffs isn’t sparing technical employees.
According to CNBC, those affected by the cuts include specialists in UI/UX, graphics, software engineering, and more. As announced last month, Meta plans on laying off an additional 10,000 workers on top of the 11,000 employees dismissed in late 2022, which will cumulatively reduce the company’s headcount by roughly 25 percent.
As part of the layoffs, the company will restructure key tech teams, a process that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said could take until the end of 2023. Even Meta’s Reality Labs, tasked with developing the company’s crucial “metaverse” technology, could see reductions, including to its vital gaming staff. Meanwhile, more resources are flooding into Meta-branded A.I. initiatives.
Meta isn’t the only big tech company initiating layoffs; over the past six months, giants ranging from Google to Amazon and Microsoft have all cut jobs. The public reasoning behind these reductions has differed from company to company: at Twitter, for example, cost-cutting was cited as the key reason to slice thousands of staffers, while Salesforce framed its layoffs as a consequence of overexuberant hiring during the pandemic.
During the pandemic, companies that sold cloud-based apps and services saw their revenue and profit jump. But widespread fears of a recession have led many customers to pull back on their tech spending, impacting vendors’ bottom lines and revenue projections—leading, in turn, to workforce cuts.
But keep in mind that the tech unemployment rate remained steady at 2.2 percent in March, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data as analyzed by CompTIA. That’s low by historical standards, and suggests there’s quite a bit of demand for tech professionals throughout the economy, even if the biggest of the big tech firms are cutting jobs. Those tech pros who specialize in data science, cybersecurity, or another in-demand skill-set could find a range of opportunities in a variety of industries.