Those who thought they survived the falling of the first axe at Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) only to find another one swinging at them are likely sweating hard today. Meta announced plans to cut another 10,000 jobs. Investors welcomed the move as Meta shares were up over 7% at the time of writing.
Back in November, Meta cut its workforce by 11,000, reducing its total workforce by 13%. Now, it’s dropping another 10,000 in the face of a litany of woes pronounced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He decried everything from competitive pressures to a changing global economy and even managed to take the opportunity to assert his belief that engineers should be back in the office at least three days a week. Although Zuckerberg also noted that non-engineering roles will be the most hit by the layoffs, he may not have much room to make demands of the skeleton crew he’s got left.
Zuckerberg certainly isn’t wrong here; much of Meta was driven by ad revenue, which has been in open decline for months as companies who would have advertised face a global downturn. Worse, that global downturn is also hitting consumers while inflated prices appear throughout the ecosystem. Thus, companies have less to spend on ads, and consumers have less to spend on advertised products. Meta’s recent shutdown of bonuses on Reels Play shows Meta’s interest in holding cash.
Yet even as Meta divests its staff, analysts remain fond of the stock. Meta is currently rated as a Moderate Buy, with nearly four Buy ratings for every one Hold or Sell. Further, with an average price target of $216.95, it enjoys 12.09% upside potential.
