Meta, like many other large technology companies, is undergoing a full restructuring. Product of this complex process, the array of applications as important as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp it has announced massive layoffs twice in recent times: 11,000 layoffs in November of last year and 10,000 in March of this year.
As if this were not enough, the company led by Mark Zuckerberg has declared 2023 as the “year of efficiency”. This label has served as a shield to promote more profound changes in order to “improve organizational efficiency and drastically increase productivity”, a mission that has been clearly expressed against teleworking.
Being hired not to work
One of the questions that remains on the table is how we got to this stage. While many details of business dynamics remain indoorsSome have come to light. One of them would have been “overcontracting” during the early days of the pandemic, which resulted in a huge operational structure.
Now, however, it appears that not all of Meta’s employees worked. In fact, according to collects The Wall Street Journal, some were hired not to work. The reasons behind that peculiar situation were several, but they were basically sustained on two axes. The first of these is that Meta was experiencing pronounced growth.
The balance sheets of the social networking company were very favorable, so the departments had enough money to hire the staff they needed. The other reason, surprising as it may seem, was attract talent from your competitorseven if they did not have an active role within the company, that is, even if they did not work.
Following the mass layoffs, some former Meta employees have shared their experience within the company on social media under the hashtag #metalayoffs. One of the testimonies cited by the aforementioned American newspaper is that of 35-year-old Britney Levy. The woman was hired in April 2022 and fired recently.
“They just put us together like Pokémon cards,” Britney sayswho also tells that he felt in a “really weird” atmosphere inside Goal. She also points out that she and some of her colleagues had to work hard to find something to do, which made her very frustrated within the company.
Another of the testimonies is from Madelyn Machado. This 33-year-old recruiter account that She started working at Meta in November 2021. However, she spent a lot of her time meeting in meeting, and because there were a large number of recruiters, there wasn’t enough work to go around.
“We don’t hire anyone,” says Madelyn Machado, who worked as a recruiter at Meta.
“We do not hire anyone,” says this professional. The company, she explains, responded to her concerns by telling her that she did not expect her to hire. during the first year. The argument? That he was still learning, and he was doing it earning $190,000 a year plus the other benefits the company gave its employees.
Meta has remained silent regarding these comments from its former employees. The company, however, seems to be taking a major turn in response to its past moves. In addition to the massive cuts, it has closed some 5,000 positions that were open.
Among its stockings would also be to ask the bosses to work more, promote a new model of shared desks and simplify the chain of command. Over time we will know what effect all this has on the company that tried to reinvent itself with the metaverse and that is now also betting on artificial intelligence.
Images: Maurizio Pesce | Anthony Quintano
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