Oops! Facebook Tells Interns It Already Hired That It Can't Afford Them Anymore

Sorry, kids!

Fake News

Amid reported layoffs, a hiring freeze, and its stock plummeting by an astonishing margin, Meta — Facebook’s rebranded parent company — has stumbled yet again in its efforts to balance the budget with an unusually cruel decision: withdrawing internships en masse, according to the New York Post.

Bright eyed, would-be-interns with gigs lined up at Meta’s London office in January 2023 had the news unceremoniously broken to them over email.

Many of them had already accepted the internship offers months ago, began making arrangements to move, and turned down other jobs and internships in the meantime.

"I changed plans and discarded [other] offers for 2023 due to this offer, so if anyone can help me with [other] opportunities for the next year, I would be glad to apply," wrote a swindled intern on LinkedIn, as spotted by the NYPost. "Sometimes life is not fair and unexpected things happen."

Tumbling Down

The interns aren’t alone in their misfortune. Meta is reportedly expected to enforce "quiet layoffs" that could result in up to some 12,000 workers losing their jobs.

The colossal company has been in a tumultuous downward spiral over the past year, posting its first loss in revenue in May and dropping $250 billion in value during the preceding winter — the most for any company, ever.

While its decline is part of a broader trend of tech giants posting large losses in a pandemic economy, Meta's feels especially dramatic. One particular reason: much-maligned CEO Mark Zuckerberg is hellbent on creating a VR metaverse, dumping billions into its development. And for all that burned money, the only thing the Zuck’s pet project has produced so far is a watered down Second Life and plenty of mockery.

So to be pulling the rug from under the feet of would-be interns, the company must be in a really, really bad spot. How much could one crop of interns actually cost for a mammoth like Meta?

Responding to the absurdity of such cut-throat cost cutting, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak had a few choice words for company.

"When COVID prevented our house workers from coming," Wozniak wrote in a tweet, "Janet and I made the sacrifice to continue paying their full salaries because it was the right thing to do."

More on Meta: Facebook Reportedly Laying Off Thousands of Employees