Meta slashes engineer hiring target by a third

Social media giant told employees 'the headwinds are fierce.'

Meta, formerly Facebook, has lowered its goal for recruiting engineers in 2022 to around 6,000-7,000, down from an early aim to hire about 10,000 new engineers.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed the figure during a weekly employee Q&A session, warning employees they should brace themselves for a challenging second half of the year. The company continues to face difficulties with its main online advertising business amid a weakening economy.

"If I had to bet, I'd say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we've seen in recent history," Zuckerberg told staff, according to Reuters.

Last month, Meta acknowledged cutting its hiring targets in broad terms, although didn't share specific numbers.

"I can't sit here and make a permanent ongoing promise that as things shift that we won't have to reconsider [job cuts]," Zuckerberg said.

The CEO told employees Meta was raising expectations on existing workers and setting more challenging targets. It is now up to them to decide for themselves if they are in the right company.

"[S]elf-selection is OK with me," he said.

This mind-set was also echoed in an internal memo from chief product officer Chris Cox.

These are "serious times" for Meta, and "the headwinds are fierce," he said, emphasising that difficulties were not likely to vanish anytime soon.

"We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets," the memo says.

"We must prioritise more ruthlessly, be thoughtful about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and velocity inside the company, and operate leaner, meaner, better exciting teams."

Cox detailed the company's top six investment objectives for the second half of the year, which will include metaverse products; AI; messaging; Reels; monetisation; and meeting new privacy requirements

The company is pushing its metaverse efforts, like Avatars and virtual environment Horizon Worlds, hard. It also intends to monetise the short-form video product Reels as soon as possible. Cox noted the amount of time spent on Reels has more than doubled worldwide since last year, with Facebook accounting for 80% of that rise.

Meta also intends to invest in features that will make it simpler for retailers to display ads to customers on its family of apps, as well as enabling employees to engage with companies via messaging.

It plans to test WhatsApp Community prior to a worldwide rollout, which is expected by the end of the year.

The firm is also working on Instagram Creator channels and conversations, both of which are expected to launch in the next months.

Meta is facing several challenges at the moment, partly as a result of its shift from a social media firm to one focusing on the metaverse.

It is also facing difficulties from the continuing fallout of Apple's changes to its privacy settings; a drop-off in the use of its Facebook mobile app; people spending less time online as the pandemic eases; and uncertainty caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In February, Meta reported that Facebook lost about 1 million daily active users worldwide in Q4'21, its first-ever fall.

Meta announced revenues of $33.7 billion (up 20% year-on-year) in Q4 and $118 billion (up 37%) for the full year, with respective net incomes of $10.3 billion (down 8%) and $29.1 billion (up 35%).

For the March quarter, the company reported revenue of $27.9 billion, up 7% year over year. That was approximately in the middle of the company's forecast range of $27 billion to $29 billion, although it fell short of the Wall Street consensus expectation of $28.3 billion.