Social media giant Meta has been revealed to be laying off nearly 50 vice presidents.
On June 13th, according to foreign media reports, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to streamline the company by reducing the number of vice president positions.
According to insiders, the number of Vice Presidents at Meta reached its peak last year, reaching around 300, an increase from 180 in previous years.
"Although several vice presidents left the company before the second wave of large-scale layoffs last year, Zuckerberg hopes that the total number of vice presidents at Meta will approach 250." The above person added that the overall goal is still to reduce the number of middle and senior employees, while increasing the proportion of bottom level employees.
Meta chose to remain silent on this market rumor, and the company spokesperson refused to comment.
In 2023, Zuckerberg announced that he no longer wanted the company to be composed of "multi-level management" and stated that Meta would be committed to "flattening". However, in reality, Meta continued to implement its internal "lagging promotion" system last year - people who are about to be promoted to a new level usually need to work in the new position for a year before changing their titles.
"This has led to an increase in management and executive teams," two insiders pointed out, but in the new era of "always pursuing efficiency," plans may not necessarily keep up with changes.
According to foreign media reports, the position of Vice President of Meta is divided into five levels. The level of Vice President is gradually decreasing through the semi annual "calibration", which is the actual soft performance evaluation conducted by Meta in the middle of the year, as well as the annual (usually in the first quarter) formal performance evaluation process.
"They must also comply with the company wide performance evaluation regulations, which require managers to classify 10% to 12.5% of team members into lower performance categories, which usually leads to them being included in performance improvement plans." The above report states that although the mandatory salary range for underperforming employees is lower than the level during Meta's large-scale layoffs (14.5% to 16.5%), it is still higher than the pre layoff level (7% to 10.5%). Such performance evaluations often lead to layoffs, or for some vice presidents, they may be informed in advance that they will be laid off.
"Some people leave because they have found other jobs, while others leave because of poor job performance," said a person familiar with the situation. "Some people find it difficult to adapt to changes or find themselves in a dilemma of not knowing what to do first and then."
In April, Meta announced its first quarter financial performance for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, with a revenue of $36.455 billion, a 27% increase from the same period last year and higher than market expectations of $36.14 billion; Net profit increased by 117% year-on-year to $12.369 billion; Diluted earnings per share increased by 114% year-on-year to $4.71, higher than market expectations of $4.32.
In the first quarter, Meta achieved a revenue growth of 27%, which is also the largest revenue growth since the third quarter of 2021. However, Meta expects its revenue to reach between $36.5 billion and $39 billion in the next fiscal quarter, with a median of $37.75 billion representing an 18% growth, lower than analyst expectations of $38.3 billion.
During the conference call after the financial report, Meta's expectations for the company's full year capital expenditure in 2024 continued to rise, with an expected total of $35 billion to $40 billion. In the previous fiscal quarter, the guidance has increased from $30 billion to $35 billion to $30 billion to $37 billion.
From a business perspective, as the main component of revenue, advertising revenue from social media platforms has performed outstandingly. However, the relevant departments of the metaverse, as well as Reality Labs responsible for AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) businesses, still suffered a huge loss of $3.846 billion in the first quarter, down from $3.992 billion in the same period last year.