job cuts
meta
The platforms are spacious, but not extravagant. Several other companies are moving even more aggressively.
Facebook parent Meta (ticker: META) said last week it would cut 10,000 jobs and eliminate 5,000 vacant positions. The cuts come less than six months after the company disclosed 11,000 layoffs in November as CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks to make the business more efficient.
This isn’t the worst of it: Baron’s Took a look at how the staffing level is
S&P 500
During 2022 the companies changed. Several firms made deeper cuts than most, eliminating 21,000 positions on Facebook.
More companies have disclosed layoffs this year. And there are less openings available.
In 2022, healthcare providers
Humana
(HUM), for example, last year cut its workforce by about one-third, taking it from 96,900 to 67,100 at the end of 2021. Insurance company
American International Group
(AIG) let go of nearly 10,000 people from its workforce of 36,600, representing a 28% cut, while
McDonald’s
(MCD) reduced its workforce by 25% from 200,000 to 150,000.
Meta’s workforce grew 20% last year, although most of the 11,000 cutbacks announced in November were not included by year’s end. The 11,000 cuts, as well as 10,000 layoffs disclosed last week, would account for 24% of the roughly 86,000 people working for the company at the end of 2022.
Other companies that have cut a significant portion of their workforce in the past year include
Stanley Black & Decker
(SWK),
MGM Resorts International
(MGM), and
AT&T
(Tea).
It is important to note that layoffs are not the only reason for changes in the workforce. Spinoffs, or the sale of parts of the business, can also result in a significant reduction in the number of employees.
When it comes to whole numbers,
Amazon.Com
(AMZN) took the biggest hit. The e-commerce giant will cut 67,000 people from its payroll in 2022, the most among S&P 500 companies. But because the company employed more than 1.6 million people at the end of 2021, the cuts amounted to only 4% of its total workforce.
FedEx (FDX), human-resources consulting firm
Robert Half International
(RHI),
ford motor
(F), Lakshya (TGT), and
Wells Fargo
(WFC) also cut a number of jobs, but the cuts were relatively small compared to their overall workforce.
The January jobs data suggests the trend hasn’t abated. The number of job losses rose by 240,000 from last month to 1.7 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest level since 2020, although non-farm payrolls increased by a net 517,000 jobs.
The biggest increase in job losses came from the professional and business services sector, which includes many tech firms. In recent years, sector layoffs have typically been around or under 400,000 per month, but in January, layoffs totaled 528,000, second only to the level at the height of the pandemic.
At the same time, the number of job openings is declining from its peak last spring, while the number of hires has remained relatively flat. This means vacancies are disappearing as companies cut back on their recruitment plans, rather than positions being filled.
In January, the number of job openings dropped by 410,000 to nearly 10.8 million. The biggest decline was not in professional services, but in construction and housing, followed by finance and insurance.
Job postings on hiring websites have actually been declining since the beginning of 2022, but this decline has accelerated in the past few months. The number was last updated a week ago.
Job postings for technical positions across the US decreased by 40,000, or 15%, in February compared to the previous month, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association. This implies that government job openings data for February may show more weakness when it becomes available.
In the current environment, a smaller workforce may be smart for some companies.
Take Meta, whose workforce is 10 times larger than it was a decade ago. Employees are slated to grow from about 6,300 people in 2013 to more than 86,000 in 2022, according to the firm’s annual filing.
Initially, the expansion coincided with strong growth. In 2016, Facebook generated approximately $28 billion in revenue with approximately 17,000 employees, which means approximately $1.6 million for each person on the staff.
By 2022, revenue was projected to increase to $116 billion, but because the workforce was larger, the per-employee figure was $638,000, less than half of what it was in 2016.
“For most of our history, we saw rapid year-over-year revenue growth and had the resources to invest in many new products,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to his employees Tuesday announcing the layoffs. Sal was a humble wake-up call. The world economy changed, competitive pressures increased, and our growth slowed significantly.
Write to Evie Liu at [email protected]