Meta – the parent company of Facebook – is getting rid of more than 11,000 employees, about 13% of the organisation.
It’s just the latest in mass layoffs in major global technology companies.
In a message to staff, founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg described the move as “some of the most difficult changes... in Meta’s history”.
“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,” said Zuckerberg.
He explained that that at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world moved online with a “surge” in e-commerce.
“Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.
Instead, he said, there had been an economic downturn, increased competition and loss of ad revenue.
“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
The huge upheaval in Silicon Valley continues, 1News' Logan Church reports. (Source: 1News)
No regrets, however, for one of Meta’s biggest investments – the metaverse. Its Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse division, had already lost US$9.4 billion (NZ$16 billion) in the first nine months of 2022 – and Zuckerberg expected those losses to grow.
“We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse,” he said.
“We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency.”
There were some cuts in Reality Labs as well, he said.
Facebook would offer support to leaving staff, however their access to Meta’s internal systems has already been removed.
“But we’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell.”
It comes after Twitter’s new chief executive, Elon Musk, laid off roughly half of the company's 7500 staff in the days after he acquired the company.
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