Meta, Facebook's parent, freezes hiring for its products like Gaming, Dating, and Messenger Kids, as well as the team built to compete with Zoom during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Mark Zuckerberg social media giant is trimming down its overall expenses, affecting some of its products and the folks behind it.
Will layoffs be part of the cost-cutting measures?
MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 28: A pedestrian walks in front of a new logo and the name 'Meta' on the sign in front of Facebook headquarters on October 28, 2021 in Menlo Park, California.
Meta's Facebook Freeze Hiring
As per a news story by Protocol, Meta, formerly known as Facebook before its massive rebrand, is trying to control its spending as it faces slowing revenue growth.
The Zuckerberg-led tech giant is also cutting back on hiring recruits to balance things.
An internal memo from the chief financial officer (CFO) of Meta, David Wehner, seen by Insider, disclosed the dwindling revenue of the social media firm these days.
A picture taken on November 19, 2021, shows the US online social media and social networking service Facebook's logo on a smartphone screen in Moscow.
The tech exec internally pointed fingers at Apple for its data privacy policy on its iPhone and iPad devices for the slowing revenue growth of FB.
Wehner also blamed the general downturn that firms in the industry are currently grappling with. He also mentioned the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
All of these, Wehner says, are the primary reasons why the Facebook parent company has to freeze its hiring.
The internal memo further stated that the hiring pushback lasts for the rest of the year. What's more, "almost every team across the company" will be affected by the year-long recruitment cutback.
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Facebook Gaming, Dating, Messenger Kids Hiring Freeze
According to a recent report by The Verge, Meta is reportedly halting its hiring in a great deal of its Facebook product offerings.
The news outlet bared which Facebook products are initially affected by the hiring pushback that Meta is implementing for the rest of 2022. Just in the nick of time when its stock price has dramatically collapsed by 43% this year.
The tech giant of Zuckerberg reportedly halted engineering hiring on both the Dating and Gaming services of Facebook. The latter competes with other giant streaming platforms like YouTube Gaming and the undisputed Twitch.
Visitors walk past the "Facebook Gaming" stand at the Video games trade fair Gamescom in Cologne, western Germany, on August 21, 2019.
On top of the two Facebook services, Meta also cuts down recruitment for Messenger Kids.
That's not all: the current hiring freeze expands to the Commerce team too. It also affects Remote Presence, which was put up together when Zoom became one of the most popular apps during the COVID-19 lockdowns across the world.
Facebook Looming Layoffs?
The Verge reported that the Meta CEO, Zuckerberg, internally downplayed the looming possibility of layoffs as the hiring freeze has already begun.
The tech entrepreneur told its staff that "as of where we sit today, our expectation is not that we're going to have to do that."
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