A person in attendance during a company Q&A session said CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the hiring freeze as this is the latest evidence advertising revenue growth for the social media giant is slowing. There's also the concern about waning activity among users. 

"For the first 18 years of the company, we basically grew quickly basically every year, and then more recently our revenue has been flat to slightly down for the first time," Zuckerberg told staff Thursday.

"I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we're seeing it doesn't yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively," he added.

Last week, Meta began quietly cutting staff by reorganizing departments while giving 'reorganized' employees the ability to apply for other roles within the company, according to WSJ.