Meta joins list of companies rescinding job offers

Dive Brief:

• Meta has rescinded job offers to “a small number of candidates,” a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday in an email to HR Dive, continuing a trend of job cuts in the technology sector.
• The news spread this week after Gergely Orosz, a software engineer and author of the Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, said in a Jan. 9 tweet that Meta rescinded full-time offers at its London offices, affecting “about 20 people,” according to Orosz.
• “While this decision did not come lightly, it allows us to remain thoughtful as we readjust our hiring through 2023 to align with our highest-priority work,” the spokesperson said.

Dive Insight:

The Facebook parent company is still experiencing a series of financial troubles — its stock price dropped by 65% in 2022 — as well as a series of headwinds internally. According to a Vox report, Meta’s lower valuations can be attributed to declining ad revenue, increased competition from other social media platforms and investor skepticism about its future product goals.

In November, The New York Times reported that Meta had cut more than 11,000 employees, translating to about 13% of its workforce. However, it is far from the only tech company to make cuts at this scale. Just days after Meta’s announcement, Amazon said it planned to lay off some 10,000 employees, and the e-commerce giant also revoked job offers citing “challenging economic conditions” in a previous email to HR Dive.

As HR teams assess the situation, it may be important to recognize that not all tech sector layoffs necessarily impact those in technical roles, CIO Dive reported. Employees impacted by turnover at Meta and elsewhere could have transferable skills that apply to roles outside of tech, something recruiters may do well to remember going into 2023.

A recent Monster survey of employers found that 92% of respondents said they planned to hire in 2023, both to backfill open positions and expand other departments. Employees in the survey were also confident, with 64% stating that they believed they would be able to find work this year.

Even if an employer is facing financial headwinds, layoffs are not necessarily the only option on the table. For example, a December McLean & Co. report posited that HR teams could instead work to redeploy employees by transferring them to jobs or departments that will better position the organization to recover in the future.