Meta Plans on Hiring Strongly in 2024
Summary
It seemed as if the social-media giant was entering a new era of austerity, one marked by smaller teams, tighter budgets, and fewer perks. “We anticipate growth in payroll expenses as we work down our current hiring underrun and add incremental talent to support priority areas in 2024, which we expect will continue to shift our workforce composition toward higher-cost technical roles,” the company wrote in a statement accompanying its latest earnings. What’s more, the company plans to spend, spend, spend on big tech initiatives, including the “metaverse,” its term for an augmented- and virtual-reality ecosystem: “Finally, for Reality Labs, we expect operating losses to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and our investments to further scale our ecosystem.” Damn the torpedoes, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be saying: we’re going to burn money until everyone in America has a Meta-branded VR headset strapped to their noggin. “Our job is to grow the company and to continue to achieve great margins,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told Bloomberg as part of the renewed hiring announcement. Remember, no matter what the state of the economy, tech professionals with in-demand skills can find work—especially at companies willing to spend big on cutting-edge, very expensive initiatives.