On Wednesday, November 9, the parent company of Facebook, Meta Platforms Inc., said that it will be laying off more than 13 percent of its workforce, which is equivalent to more than 11,000 employees.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, revealed the news in a post on his company's site. In the article, he admitted that he was at fault for being overoptimistic about the company's future growth based on an epidemic rise.
According to a post that Zuckerberg made, "At the beginning of Covid, the world rapidly shifted online, and the boom of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth."
"A lot of people thought that this would be a lasting acceleration that would keep going long after the pandemic was over. I had the same sentiment, which is why I came to the conclusion that our investments should be greatly boosted. I was hoping for a certain outcome, but it did not turn out the way I anticipated.
According to Zuckerberg, the firm will now focus more resources on "a smaller number of high priority growth areas," such as advertisements, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse, in order to become "leaner and more efficient." This will be accomplished by lowering spending and staff.
In particular, according to Zuckerberg, the company's recruiting team would be "disproportionately harmed" by the layoffs.
In the blog post that announced the layoffs at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg stated that employees who were let go in the United States would receive the following benefits: health insurance coverage for a period of six months, 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for each year of service; assistance in finding new employment and navigating immigration issues; and support.
With "a tiny number of exceptions," according to Zuckerberg, the business will put a halt on new hires beginning in the first quarter of 2023 and continuing through the remainder of the year.
The widespread layoffs, which are the first of their kind in Meta's 18-year history, come on the heels of thousands of job losses at other top technology businesses, such as Twitter, which is owned by Elon Musk, and Microsoft Corp.