Meta Platforms Stock News and Forecast: META advances after rumors of major layoffs

• Meta Platforms is said to be considering new layoffs.
• META stock rose more than 2% on the news.
• CEO Mark Zuckerberg is slated to go on paternity leave soon.
• The owner of Facebook fired 11,000 workers late last year.

Meta Platforms (META), owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, is alledgedly gearing up for another round of layoffs after just completing its first round in November. Bloomberg reported late Monday that the C suite had asked lower-level management to come up with lists of employees that are expendable. META stock added about 2% in Tuesday's premarket on the news, well ahead of the 0.3% gain in the NASDAQ futures. Other indices are also ahead marginally.

Meta Platforms stock news: How many employees are left to cut?

The answer to that headline is somewhere around 74,000. The Facebook parent let go of 11,000 workers beginning in November of last year, and that is where most observers thought it would end. The Bloomberg story, however, suggests that the call for further downsizing is coming from the top. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to go on paternity leave any day now due to the birth of his third child.

Zuckerberg was quite straightforward in Meta's most recent earnings announcement that cost cutting was top of mind. The Bloomberg story says that vice presidents and directors have been asked to come up with lists of employees that are expendable to the firm and that any major job cutting decision needs to happen before Zuckerberg heads out the door. 

The Washington Post reported in February that Zuckerberg was again considering layoffs. That reporting suggested that the new cost cutting might affect middle management as some managers would be forced to take on much larger team sizes. The stategy is often called flattening and is supposed to reduce the number of managers in an organization so that there are few levels of managment between the C suite and the rank and file.

Meta Platforms stock forecast

With META stock rising once again in the premarket, bulls will have their eyes set on $200. This level of resistance goes back to June 2022, and break above that line would mean that META's downturn starting last year was fully over.

Before $200, readers will note that on February 2 and 3 META stock got stopped out around $197. This shows just how strongly even the bulls respect the $200 psychological level as most decided to take profits ahead of that price tag.

On the downside, shareholders are much safer now as both $183 and $170 stand in the way of a broader pullback. With $183 as a resistance level only recently broken through, focus on $170 as the true support level over the next two months.

META daily chart