Why Meta’s ‘leaner is better’ feels extra contagious

Meta CEO and corporate-speak bard Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” will bring a second round of layoffs.

The parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is set to cut 10k jobs and withdraw 5k open roles, just months after slashing 11k+ jobs. That’s a staggering 25% YoY workforce reduction.

And Zuck’s “flatter is faster” claim feels like poetry written specifically for tech execs…

The industry-wide horror show continues

We haven’t even finished one quarter of 2023, or seen the full fallout of Silicon Valley Bank’s swan dive, yet the grim annual tracker at layoffs.fyi has now topped 138k.

The scariest part for workers: Wall Street’s exuberant reaction to Meta’s latest cuts. As the company’s projected revenue per employee shot up, other Big Tech investors’ ears undoubtedly did the same — this makes for a trusty playbook when execs need to add some juice to the markets.

Yes, these layoffs are a correction from the industry’s outsized pandemic hiring spree, and Zuckerberg’s fixation on investing in the metaverse puts them on their own journey, but…

… employees’ edge is clearly slipping

Competition for talent once had tech candidates feasting on a bounty of salaries, benefits, and perks. Now they have started to report a “take it or leave it” approach in recruitment.

As each successive round of cuts shifts leverage back to employers, C-suites will be tempted by Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” anthem.