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STORY: Facebook-owner Meta Platforms is slashing its hiring.

The firm has cut plans to take on new engineers by at least 30% this year.

Company boss Mark Zuckerberg broke the news to employees on Thursday (June 30).

He says workers need to brace for a deep economic downturn, predicting it could be one of the worst in recent economic history.

Zuckerberg said Meta had planned to hire 10,000 new engineers, but that number will now fall to 7,000 or even less.

The company is also leaving some vacant positions unfilled, and turning up the heat on management to weed out poor performers.

Zuckerberg says more aggressive performance goals should make some folk realise that working at Facebook isn’t for them.

Meta is already battling a tough year, with its shares down by around a half.

That after the firm said active users on the social network had seen a quarterly decline for the first time.

The downturn comes at an awkward time, with Meta spending big to fend off competition from TikTok and develop virtual reality technologies.