Facebook’s parent company Meta plans to begin large-scale layoffs this week that will affect thousands of employees.
US media reported over the weekend that the job cuts could be announced as early as Wednesday.
During Meta’s disappointing third-quarter results, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said headcount could fall.
“In 2023, we will focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas,” he said.
Meta has around 87,000 employees worldwide across its various platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The job cut plans follow struggles in the tech sector as the industry grapples with slowing global economic growth.
Mr Zuckerberg said he expected some teams to “stay flat or contract” over the next year.
“Overall, we expect to end 2023 with roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization, than we are today,” he said.
Ad-supported platforms such as Alphabet’s Facebook and Google suffer from advertiser budget cuts as they battle inflation and rising interest rates.
Last Thursday, Silicon Valley companies Stripe and Lyft announced wide-scale layoffs, while Amazon said it would freeze hiring at its offices.
Not only is the global economic situation an issue for Meta, but there is also competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the metaverse and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Mr Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take about a decade to yield positive results.
In the meantime, he says he has to reorganise teams to trim costs.
In the social media company in June cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30%, with Mr Zuckerberg warning employees to brace for an economic downturn.
Meta’s shareholder Altimeter Capital Management had previously said, in an open letter to Mr Zuckerberg, that the company needs to streamline by cutting jobs and capital expenditure. It added that Meta had lost investor confidence as it ramped up spending and started focusing on the metaverse.
The company’s market value over the past year is down to $600bn