(Bloomberg) — After hiring more women and minorities in recent years, Meta Platforms Inc. warned that its ongoing efforts to cut costs and revamp products could make further inroads more difficult.
The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, issued a generally upbeat progress report on Tuesday showing that it has increased the diversity of its US workforce in the past year.
That includes putting more women and underrepresented minorities in leadership and technical roles. A year ago, Meta reported that the number of women at the company had declined slightly.
In some cases, Meta surpassed five-year goals that it established just three years ago.
In 2019, the company set out to double the number of women on staff globally by 2024. It also sought to double the number of Black and Hispanic workers in the US over that same time period. It has done both ahead of schedule.
But with the company in the middle of a shake-up, future hiring plans are less clear.
That’s why Meta won’t be issuing new diversity targets for now, said Chief Diversity Officer Maxine Williams. The company has slowed hiring — including for some senior level positions — and has been overhauling its product plans, she noted.
Both of those play a role in shaping the company’s diversity goals, Williams said.
“The challenge is maintaining” these numbers, rather than achieving new targets, Williams said.
Even with the recent headway, Meta is still a ways off from matching the diversity of the broader US population.
Black employees make up 4.9% of Meta’s US workforce, up from 4.4% one year ago. But the US total is around 13%.
Hispanic employees account for 6.7% of the US employee base, up from 6.5%. That figure is roughly 18% for the country as a whole.
Female workers, meanwhile, make up 37.1% of Meta’s global workforce and 36.7% of company leadership.
Those numbers were 36.7% and 35.5%, respectively, one year ago.
Asians are the most represented ethnic group in Meta’s US workforce, accounting for almost 47%. White employees made up just under 38%, about half the overall US rate.
In the past, Williams had a near-unlimited budget and it was easy to get headcount to pursue goals, she said.
Now the company — and its teams focused on diversity — are trying to be more lean and focused, she added.
A hiring slowdown means Meta needs to find new leaders internally. The company’s shifting product road map may have an impact as well.
With employees getting shuffled internally, workers reassigned to new projects may not want to stick around. Meta has moved large portions of its workforce to projects like the metaverse and its short-form video product, Reels.
“Anytime you are in an environment where variables are changing, it makes it hard to know if you’re going to hit your target,” Williams said.
Meta offered remote-work flexibility and other perks during the pandemic, helping prevent a big wave of employee departures.
But that could still come, Williams added. “There are so many unknowns.”
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