Facebook parent Meta announced on Wednesday to slash around 11,000 jobs as a part of mass layoffs to cut expenses and transform its business model.
As the tech industry is slashing jobs, Meta too announced layoffs. “We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg termed the layoffs as some of the most difficult changes the company has made in Meta’s history and added that everyone in the company will soon get an email “letting you know what this layoff means for you.”
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg said in the statement that was also posted on the company›s website. «I know this is tough for everyone, and I›m especially sorry to those impacted.»
Zuckerberg said in the statement that he›d anticipated that the surge in e-commerce and web traffic from the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdowns would be part of a permanent acceleration. «But the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than expected. I got this wrong.»
Meta reported having more than 87,000 employees at the end of September.
The planned layoffs would be the first broad head-count reductions to occur in the company’s 18-year history.
The company said that while reductions will happen across the company, its recruiting team will be disproportionately affected and its business teams would be restructured “more substantially.” Meta will also reduce its real estate footprint, review its infrastructure spending and transition some employees to desk sharing, with more cost-cutting announcements expected in the coming months.
