WASHINGTON DC — A “grim future” is expected for Meta in the coming months after the mass layoff of 11,000 employees revealed capital problems at the tech giant and will lead to months of restructuring, according to technology experts. “Meta is in the midst of an identity crisis. The company has one foot in a long-term long-term metaverse gamble and another foot that fails to compete with TikTok. Neither bodes well for Meta in the short term, and more severe cost-cutting measures were inevitable as the company tries to regroup heading into a bleak 2023,” Mike Proulox, chief operating officer, told . research at Forrester, a Massachusetts-based research firm. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief operating officer of Meta, assured in a message to the company’s employees that the cut of 13% of the personnel was carried out in order to “be more efficient” with the capital. “We’ve shifted more of our resources into high-priority growth areas, like our AI discovery engine, our ads and trading platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse,” he said. Lewis Ward, director of gaming and virtual reality research at intelligence firm IDC, told VOA that “the metaverse remains somewhat ill-defined, even in Meta, so it’s hard to discern how these layoffs will affect the internal roadmap.” Meta’s timeframes for implementing new metaverse-related hardware, software, and services will likely be longer.” However, the new mandate in the social network Twitter, which is now in the hands of the tycoon Elon Musk, could set some visions of the metaverse on the way, said Neil Johnson, a professor of physics at George Washington University. “I think these [despidos] they are made to preserve the movement towards the metaverse”, he pointed out. “The metaverse has just taken a step forward with the change in ownership of Twitter which is now powering social media ‘blockchain’ platforms like Mastodon, which run cryptocurrencies in the background and therefore are a stepping stone into the next generation of metaverses, involving Meta but also other future companies,” Johnson told VOA. Meta also plans to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter of its fiscal year. “You bet tech companies that haven’t laid off employees yet are carefully considering whether or not to do so. It would not be surprising to see more layoffs in the coming months. Widespread economic concerns, some caused by rising interest rates, others by the war in Ukraine, high fuel costs and supply chain issues, are driving these moves in anticipation of lower demand. VOA Forrester Principal Analyst JP Gownder. Workers in the technology sector, such as software developers and engineers, are highly likely to find new jobs due to the demand for such skills in the implementation of technologies in companies. “However, it should be noted that other layoffs at tech companies come from jobs like human resources that are less in demand. These workers may have a harder time finding new positions,” Gownder added. Connect with the ! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
RELATED
