Meta Inc. is reportedly reinstating employee perks after brutal mass layoffs this spring, with the Facebook and Instagram owner offering campus amenities like happy hours, corporate merchandise, snacks, laundry service and haircuts. It is said that it is being revived.
At the tech giant’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, where thousands of staff report to a 250-acre campus with more than 30 buildings, “dozens” of the 21,000 people laid off were They were rehired and now have their pre-pandemic benefits restored.According to bloomberg.
Employees said that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the on-site restaurant’s dinner service, which had been available until late at night, has been moved up to the more usual 6 p.m.
Food vendors are also opening their doors again and encouraging employees to come to work in person.
And the attitude of the staff has improved, prompting me to attend the Thursday standing happy hour again.
A Meta spokesperson told Bloomberg that “dinners, happy hours and company swag have never really gone away, they have just been adjusted in light of the pandemic and budget.”
Other amenities, including a fully stocked snack bar, are also making a big comeback along with Meta’s employees, a spokesperson said.
Lately, the stocked refrigerators at Meta headquarters have been running out of fruit-flavored La Croix sparkling water. This is proof that the company’s employees are showing up to work and taking advantage of office benefits.
Similarly, the snack bar was operating empty but has now been restocked. It’s a change from the routinely empty kiosks that plagued Meta’s bleak offices during the pandemic and up until earlier this year, shortly after the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company was founded. More than 11,000 workers were laid off.
After mass layoffs that affected around 13% of Meta’s total workforce, Zuckerberg’s so-called “Year of Efficiency” left staff losing teammates they felt like friends and senior management Morale continued to suffer as it delayed the approval of necessary budgets and disrupted normal workflow. .
“The year of efficiency begins with a lot of people getting paid for doing nothing,” said one Meta employee. financial times Back in February.
Staff told the FT that there was “zero work” going on at the time, with decisions that would normally take days to approve now only a few, including in some of the company’s key departments such as the Metaverse and advertising. It can take anywhere from a week to several months.
Despite the challenges, a month later, Facebook’s parent company cut another 10,000 employees, bringing the company’s total layoffs to a whopping 21,000.
The massacre resulted in the closure of 5,000 unfilled positions. In the meantime, Mr. Zuckerberg encouraged his remaining staff to work more hours in the office.
In fact, thanks to the president’s cost-cutting efforts, the company was able to beat Wall Street expectations for two consecutive quarters in terms of both profits and revenue.
Meta reported in July that second-quarter revenue rose 11% to $32 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $31.12 billion.
Ad revenue rose 12% in the three months ended June 30, outpacing Google’s growth, where ad revenue rose just 3%.
The company also reported profit of $7.79 billion for the quarter, up 16% from a year ago and again impressively beating analyst expectations.
Meta’s second-quarter results come after Instagram’s parent company also beat Wall Street’s modest expectations for first-quarter profit and revenue.
Meta said revenue for the January-March period was $7.47 billion, with sales up 3% to $28.65 billion.
Meta’s stock hits an 18-month high after consecutive quarters of improvement, and staff conditions are starting to improve as Zuckerberg appears to be loosening his ‘Year of Efficiency’ campaign. .
Just last month, it was reported that Meta had rehired “dozens” of the 21,000 employees who were laid off as part of Zack Burger’s cash-saving mission.
The exact number of employees who have rejoined Meta was not immediately clear, but the new hires are believed to be in engineering and technical positions.
According to the company, experienced former meta-engineers who have performed well at the company are most likely to be rehired, many of them in jobs with lower seniority and lower pay. insider.
And while perks like laundry service and on-site dining have been restored, they are no longer as attractive as they were before the pandemic, staffers told Bloomberg.
Employees told news sites that laundry, which was once free, was now charged, and some claimed the food wasn’t as good as it used to be.
Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
