Mark Zuckerberg, the director of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has revealed that the company will today lay off 11,000 employees, or about 13% of the current total number of employees worldwide. Affected employees will be notified today.
Company reported its third-quarter earnings last monthwith revenue falling $4 billion annually to $27.7 billion, and with virtually no growth in user numbers across its Core Family of Apps, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
While layoffs in the tech sector have taken place over the past few months, layoffs of this size by one of the top tech companies are an indication of how things are going even today. for some of the world’s most valuable companies. So far Meta has conducted a targeted recruitment freeze, but has not announced any layoffs.
“Today, I’m sharing some of the toughest changes we’ve made in the history of Meta” Zuckeberg said in a letter to employees also published on Meta’s website.
“I have decided to reduce the size of my team by about 13% and let our 11,000+ talented employees go. We are also taking some additional steps to become a lean and efficient company. more by cutting discretionary spending and expanding our hiring freeze in Q1.”
Meta had a global total of 87,314 as of September 30, 2022, up 28% year-on-year. At the Q3 earnings update, Meta speak it expects its headcount by the end of 2023 to be approximately the same as in the third quarter of 2022. It has begun to stop hiring in parts of its business, but continues to hire in those. other, especially AI and VR/AR, aka Meta’s Reality Lab.
Meta will lay off affected employees in the United States for 16 weeks plus two additional weeks for each year of employment with no limitation; remaining paid leave; RSU vesting; health insurance for the next six months; career services; and “immigration assistance” for visa-dependent employees. According to Zuckerberg, the support will be “similar” outside of the US.
But Meta immediately cut off system access to the affected employees.
“We made the decision to remove access to most of the Meta systems for those who left today due to access to sensitive information. But we still kept the email addresses,” Zuckerberg wrote. works throughout the day so everyone can say goodbye,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Zuckerberg said he made some mistakes based on his expectations from what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyone went digital.
“At the inception of Covid, the world moved rapidly online and the explosion of e-commerce led to outstanding revenue growth. Many expected this to be a permanent acceleration that would continue. continued even after the pandemic ended. Me too, so I have decided to significantly increase our investments,” he wrote.
“Unfortunately, this didn’t turn out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce gone back to where it used to be, but the macroeconomic downturn, competition increased, and advertising lost its signal. caused our revenue to be much lower than I expected. I was wrong and I take responsibility for that.”
Zuckerberg said that while the cuts will affect the App Family (Facebook, Instgram, WhatsApp) and Reality Labs, he noted groups like recruiting will “be disproportionately affected because we anticipate plan to hire fewer people next year.”
He added: “We’re also restructuring our business teams in a more fundamental way. This is not a reflection of the great work these teams have done, but rather what we need in our business. The leaders of each group will schedule a time to discuss what this means, Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg said the layoffs were a “last resort” and made other changes, including downsizing the real estate business and shifting to sharing desks for people who regularly work from home or elsewhere. More cost-cutting changes are happening in the coming months.
Meta will also extend the hiring freeze through Q1 with “a small number of exceptions”.
“We’re basically making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than expected earlier this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently. results on both Family of Apps and Reality Labs,” Zuckerberg said.
