Meta's largest layoff begins: technical positions are inevitable, and the smart watch project is gone

　　After the layoff of Meta's layoffs, the relevant details were released one after another. The company said in an email to employees that it would stop the research and development of several smart product projects, including smart watches and smart displays that have not yet been listed, involving about half of the technical positions. .

The power of the metaverse sector remains undiminished

　　Meta announced last week that it would begin the largest layoff in its 18-year history, cutting 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce.

The layoffs affect employees at nearly all levels and teams, including individuals with high performance ratings.

However, the company said it will continue to stick to the development work of the Metaverse division Reality Lab, but it does not expect a significant increase in the size of the team.

　　Overall, 54% of the layoffs were in business roles and the rest in technical roles, according to Lori Goler, Meta's head of human resources. Meta's recruiting team has also been cut by nearly half.

　　Meta executives also revealed that the company is reorganizing some of its business units, merging the voice and video calling unit with other communications teams, and creating a new unit, Family Foundations, focused on solving tough engineering problems.

　　Meta will also stop work on smartwatches, said Andrew Bosworth, the company's chief technology officer who oversees the Meta Metaverse's Reality Labs division.

　　According to the news revealed earlier this year, Meta's smartwatch can support users to send messages, and has health monitoring and exercise monitoring functions, such as the ability to connect to fitness equipment systems such as Peloton Interactive. The product was originally planned to be launched next year. On sale.

However, at present, products from manufacturers such as Apple and Garmin have occupied most of the market share.

　　In this regard, a former Facebook technical director told the first financial reporter: "Meta's watch project has not received any attention in the market, and such a project should have been terminated long ago. The number of technical teams in Meta's previous round of recruitment expansion was indeed too large. There are many projects that have no commercial prospects at all.”

　　According to reports, the revamped smartwatch division will instead focus on augmented reality glasses.

More than half of Reality Labs' total investment is in the development of augmented reality devices.

　　In addition, Meta decided to stop selling Portal devices, known for their video-calling capabilities, to consumers and instead focus on enterprise sales.

　　These business adjustments are mainly due to the "economic downturn", and corporate executives have to make "big changes" in the near term.

Downturn in inflation leads to layoffs

　　Meta has gone on a hiring spree during the pandemic as the stay-at-home economy has fueled a surge in social media use.

But Meta's business has suffered significantly this year as advertisers and consumers stopped spending amid soaring costs and rapidly rising interest rates.

　　However, Meta said no further layoffs are expected after the layoffs.

But companies must cut other spending, such as outsourcers, fixed-asset projects, and computing infrastructure and various products under scrutiny.

　　In addition to Meta, a number of U.S. technology companies have also announced layoffs or hiring freezes.

Musk began a large-scale layoff plan after acquiring Twitter, laying off nearly 50% of the workforce, or more than 3,700 people, in order to improve Twitter's current losses and debt problems.

　　The latest to join the wave of layoffs is Disney, which has told employees it will freeze hiring for some positions, along with a small number of layoffs.

Amazon also said it had frozen jobs.

　　Deng Zhijian, director of investment strategy at DBS Bank China, believes that although the signs of high inflation in the United States have eased, they are still not enough to change the Fed's monetary policy of raising interest rates. The poor macro economy has led to an increase in layoffs.

　　“I think U.S. interest rates will still peak at 5%, and they will remain at their peak next year. Because the impact of monetary policy on inflation is deferred. Interest rates rise to a certain height, or remain high for a relatively long period of time. , it is enough to completely suppress the expansion intention of enterprises, reduce purchasing efforts, reduce production capacity, reduce employment, and then reduce the demand for end commodities, and finally reduce prices. This kind of deferral may take at least half a year to a year to really take effect. ." Deng Zhijian said.

　　He predicts that inflation may not fall back to 2% until 2024 at the earliest, and before that, the Fed may not be in a rush to cut interest rates, which would cause inflation to rise again.

Deng Zhijian also said that in addition to monetary policy, corporate taxes and personal taxes in the United States should also be adjusted to keep inflation down.