LONDON’S BUSINESS NEWSPAPER
WHO’S IN, WHO’S OUT... ENGLAND SQUAD ANNOUNCED TODAY AS PRESSURE BUILDS ON BOSS P24 THURSDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2022
ISSUE 3,858
CITYAM.COM
VIRTUAL REALITY
ZUCKERBERG FORCED TO SLASH 11,000 JOBS AS META FINALLY BUCKLES UNDER PRESSURE
LEAH MONTEBELLO FACEBOOK owner Meta axed 13 per cent of its worldwide staff yesterday as the tech giant finally responded to falling revenues. In a note to staff yesterday, chief exec Mark Zuckerberg said it was one of “the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history”. The Silicon Valley titan, which also owns Instagram and Whatsapp, employs around 5,148 people in the UK and opened a new swanky office in London’s Kings Cross earlier this year. The social media boss said the layoffs were about becoming a “leaner and more efficient company”, as well as prioritising projects like the “longterm vision” for the virtual reality ‘metaverse’.
Investors had been piling pressure on Meta to reduce costs, with the firm’s share price down almost 70 per cent on the year. Some had expressed frustration at the cost of the ‘metaverse’ experiment, which so far has cost the firm almost $9bn this year alone. Zuckerberg said that during the pandemic “the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth”, a trend he believed would continue after Covid-19. However, he said “this did not play out the way I expected” and “the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition... have caused our revenue to be much lower than I expected”. It was not clear last night how many jobs would be lost in the UK, though there were reports of hundreds of job
THE NOMINATIONS ARE IN AND THE COUNTDOWN IS ON P15-17
losses being on the cards at Meta’s European HQ in Dublin. The news came a day after reports that Tiktok, a Facebook competitor, had slashed its worldwide revenue targets for the year by as much as $2bn. Head of investment at Interactive Investor Victoria Scholar told City A.M. that although Facebook has been at odds with Bytedance-owned Tiktok to nab the attention of Gen Z, the latter’s “overconfidence has led to a spending problem that has got out of control”. She reckons both firms are set to struggle as advertising dollars continue to get squeezed in the next year – something that will hit Meta the hardest if Zuckerberg keeps driving home his “moonshot bet on the Metaverse, which hasn’t paid off”.
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Tube strikes a blow to city’s reputation ILARIA GRASSO MACOLA UNIONS are yet again bringing London to a standstill today, with tube and overground services both subject to industrial action. Yesterday, London Tories pinned the blame on the city’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, saying he was “too weak to stand up to” militant union leaders. Khan, however, said he had “repeatedly urged the unions to call off this action and work with TfL to find a solution”. Workers are striking over possible changes to pensions and staffing, though Transport for London has been at pains to say no decisions have been made on pensions, and changes to staffing patterns do not require a single job loss. According to Richard Burge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, strikes will only hinder London’s competitiveness on the global economic stage, with them damaging the city’s ability to “credibly attract” investment.
INSIDE MADE.COM COLLAPSES P3 M&S WARNS A STORM IS BREWING P8 HOUSING MARKET SPARKS ALARM P8 THE CROWN’S MOST ANTICIPATED SEASON: REVIEWED P22