Meta and Apple — two top tech companies known for their office perks — didn’t make Glassdoor’s US list of the 100 Best Places to Work this year.
It’s the first time since the list was created in 2009 that Apple hasn’t made the list, and Meta has been included in the ranking since 2011. Last year, both companies placed in the middle of the list, Bloomberg reported.
The annual list is based on feedback from employees of companies with at least 1,000 employees that was compiled from October 19, 2021 to October 17, 2022.
Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told Insider that while the ranking this year highlights common themes like flexibility, transparency, and communication, it’s also indicative of employees’ perspectives on their companies’ economic outlooks.
“It’s something that we get feedback on from employees because we know it’s something that people care about and that’s even more important at a time when the economy might be slowing down,” Zhao said. “So I think this list is especially useful in that sense because we are considering how employees perceive their employers are doing.”
“It becomes more important than ever for people to really understand the health of the company that they’re going to, whether you’re talking about financial health or cultural health,” he added.
Meta and Apple have faced headwinds over the past year.
In 2022, Meta froze hiring, rescinded job offers, and slashed over 11,000 jobs — the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history. Employees also expressed concern with Mark Zuckerberg’s focus on the metaverse, a world where people connect in a digital universe using VR and AR devices. The company changed its name from Facebook to Meta in October 2021 to emphasize its focus on the metaverse and has shed nearly 60% of its value since. In 2022, Meta’s Reality Labs reported losses of over $9 billion.
Last year, only 58% of survey respondents in a poll of Meta employees conducted by Blind, an anonymous professional forum that verifies users’ work history, said they understood Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambitions, according to The New York Times. The Times also reported that many employees didn’t even use Meta’s in-house Horizon Worlds VR app.
Similarly, Apple implemented a hiring freeze in 2022. Zhao told Bloomberg that the company’s push for workers to return to the office could have also caused it to fall off the ranking.
While Meta and Apple fell off the list, tech companies still dominated the US rankings, accounting for 40% of the organizations on the list. Top tech companies like Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Google made the top 20.
“Yes, there are some companies that fell off the list. There are some tech companies that entered the list,” Zhao said. “It’s just a reminder that during tough times, often we see a changing of the guard. There are older companies who might be stuck in their ways that tend to fall by the wayside, whereas new companies can challenge and rise to the top.”
