According to the report, Facebook is preparing to cut thousands of jobs this week

According to Twitter, it looks like Meta employees will be threatened with layoffs this week.

Meta, the social media giant that owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, is planning large-scale layoffs that will affect thousands of employees.

An announcement is expected on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter.

In October, Meta forecast a weak holiday quarter and significantly higher expenses next year, which would take away about $67 billion from Meta’s market value, adding to more than half a trillion dollars already lost this year come in addition.

The disappointing outlook comes as Meta grapples with slowing global economic growth, competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the Metaverse, and the ever-present threat of regulation.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects the Metaverse investments to take about a decade to bear fruit. In the meantime, he’s had to freeze hiring, close projects, and reorganize teams to cut costs.

Meta declined to comment on the reports of layoffs, but a spokesperson pointed to comments from Zuckerberg on the last earnings call in late October.

“In 2023, we will focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas. So that means some teams will grow significantly, but most other teams will remain flat or shrink over the next year,” Zuckerberg said.

“Overall, we expect that by 2023 we will either be about the same size or even slightly smaller than today.”

In June, the social media company had slashed its plans to hire engineers by at least 30%, with Zuckerberg warning employees to prepare for an economic downturn.

Meta’s shareholder Altimeter Capital Management had previously said in an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg that the company needs to streamline by cutting jobs and investments, adding that Meta lost investor confidence as it increased spending and Metaverse changed.

Several tech companies including Microsoft , Twitter and Snap have cut jobs and scaled back hiring in recent months as global economic growth slows amid higher interest rates, rising inflation and an energy crisis in Europe.

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