Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced on Tuesday, Mar. 14, its plans to let off around 10,000 workers, or about 13% of its workforce. It is reportedly the latest effort to adhere to what Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has termed a "Year of Efficiency."
"This will be tough and there's no way around that," he stated.
More Layoffs (as Expected)
As first reported by The New York Times, Zuckerberg confirmed the layoffs in a message posted on the company's website and said they would begin with the recruitment team this week and continue through a reorganization of its tech and business units in April and May.
The CEO also said in the announcement that he intends to remove around 5,000 unfilled job posts.
This is the second wave of layoffs the firm has declared in the last six months. Almost 11,000 individuals, or roughly 13% of the company's previous workforce, were let go by Meta in November 2022.
In 2022, during the pinnacle of the Covid pandemic, Meta expanded to 87,000 workers worldwide.
Guilt for Overhiring and Firings
After years of rapid recruiting, Mr. Zuckerberg is now reducing his workforce. As his app family, which includes WhatsApp, gained global popularity, his firm devoured up employees. Mobile app use skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, contributing to the overall expansion. Meta has 87,000 full-time workers as of last year's peak.
Zuckerberg started putting a stop to uncontrolled expansion last year as the global economy deteriorated and digital advertising markets constricted.
To save money, Meta reduced the number of benefits given to employees. Zuckerberg has already hinted at future layoffs following the ones in November 2022, which mostly hit the business divisions and recruitment teams.
In February, during a quarterly report, the CEO said he did not want the firm to be bloated with middle management. He admitted guilt for the firings that occurred last year, saying he overreacted to the early spike in business by hiring more help.
Crisis Strikes the Firm
Meta has a lot on its plate right now.
It faces a digital advertising slowdown and Apple's privacy modifications to its mobile operating system, which limit Meta's ability to gather iPhone user data to target adverts. TikTok, which has seen explosive growth in popularity in recent years, is also a major competitor.
Meta is likewise undergoing a challenging transformation to become a "metaverse" corporation, linking individuals to an immersive digital environment through virtual reality (VR) goggles and apps. Zuckerberg considers the metaverse to be the computing platform of the future.
As a result, Meta has been investing billions of dollars and reorganizing its workforce to concentrate on developing products for the metaverse in its Reality Labs division.
Moreover, Meta has spent much time and money on AI research, but it has yet to be in the discussion recently.
