Meta slows hiring, blaming Apple, war and its stock price

Meta is pulling back on hiring in order to control its spending, Insider reported Wednesday.

The Facebook parent is working to cut costs as its revenue grows more slowly than expected. Insider cites an internal memo from CFO David Wehner that pointed to Apple’s data privacy changes on iOS devices, a downturn across the industry and the war in Ukraine as reasons for the hiring freeze. Meta’s stock price has dropped by more than one-third in the last six months.

The hiring cutbacks will hit “almost every team across the company" and will last for the rest of the year, according to internal memos cited by Insider. It's a far cry from the "Why hiring is so hard right now" memo that was leaked in 2021 as part of The Facebook Papers. The memo described the struggle and subsequent failure to meet recruiting goals.

Hiring has been especially expensive in the last couple of years, and backing off the competition for tech talent is certainly one way to save money. Meta has already grown its workforce by 28% since last year, Insider pointed out, with a headcount of more than 78,000. And Meta isn’t alone in this cutback: Insider pointed to similar moves at DoorDash and Google Cloud. For now the company seems to be avoiding mass layoffs, unlike some startups that thrived during the pandemic.