The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, will begin a “massive layoff” this week. Thousands of Meta employees are expected to be effected by the decision, and many employees are expected to be told on Wednesday whether they will remain employed with the social media platform. WSJ cited “people familiar with the matter” as a source, but Reuters is reporting that Meta declined to comment on the WSJ report.

According to reports, Meta has already told employees to cut any “non-essential travel” this week.

Meta owns Instagram as well.

The layoffs aren’t on the same scale of surprise as those at Twitter last week. Just two months ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced that layoffs and “reorganizing teams” were imminent. For most of 2022, Big Tech companies, including Meta, Apple, and Microsoft, have seen drops in their stock prices. Meta in particular saw its stock drop by a whopping 73 percent. Netflix announced earlier this year that it would be laying off employees as well after seeing customers flee after a price increase to the monthly streaming service.

On Monday however, the stock price of Meta was up by just over 6 percent in spite of the layoff announcement.

In September, Zuckerberg cited issues such as “a sharp slowdown in growth” for the upcoming reductions in staff. At the end of June, Zuckerberg was quoted as telling staff: “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.” At that point in time, Zuckerberg told those with a stake in the organization that Meta would likely cut the hiring of engineers by at least thirty percent. He also “warned employees to brace for an economic downturn.”

Altimeter Capital, a Meta shareholder, had previously sent Zuckerberg a missive stating that he should “cut jobs.” The letter also told Zuckerberg that he had “lost investor confidence.”

In October, Meta said that it expected fourth quarter earnings to be “weak.” The company also cited “significantly more costs” totaling $67 billion for 2022. Reuters reports that Meta has lost over $500 trillion (in value) in 2022 alone.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when lockdowns forced people to stay home – often spending a lot more time on social media – Meta (then Facebook) and other social platforms hired many more employees. In fact, Meta alone hired nearly 30,000 individuals. Between January and September 2022, Meta hired another 15,000.

Breitbart reports that Facebook/Meta has “struggled with growing losses” this year, even after the announcement that the social media platform was investing in more virtual reality and a revamp of the platform.

While Facebook and Instagram still have millions of users daily, the company has seen growing competition from TikTok and other social media platforms. Some users have left the platform altogether claiming censorship as their chief reason for exit. Late this summer, Mark Zuckerberg admitted to Joe Rogan during a podcast interview that his company had worked to suppress information on the Hunter Biden laptop (although the company did not completely censor the story from the NY Post). This admission angered many conservative users.

As an added insult to injury, Apple changed some privacy settings on its devices that have affected Facebook usage. Zuckerberg’s investment in the Metaverse has cost much more than anticipated, and slowing global economic growth has not helped the plight of any social media platforms. Businesses in unrelated fields, such as a TikTok Story Link, have also had to adapt their online strategies as digital advertising becomes more competitive.

Last week, after receiving criticism over Twitter layoffs, new owner of the Blue Bird Elon Musk admitted that the platform was losing the equivalent of $4 million daily.

Zuckerberg had said previously that he believed that his new Meta version of the social media platform would take at least one decade to bear any financial fruit. In the wake of that information, Zuckerberg said he would have to freeze hiring, put a hold on some projects, and reorganize employees so that costs could be cut.