Facebook parent company Meta to lay off more

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has announced that it will cut 13% of its workforce

Facebook parent company Meta to lay off more than 11,000 employees

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the cuts were “the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history”.

The news follows major lay-offs at Twitter, which cut about half its staff, and other tech firms.

“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg told employees.

“I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”

He told employees he made that decision based on the belief that e-commerce would continue to grow

and provide a strong source of revenue post-pandemic — a prediction that turned out to be wrong,

he said.

“Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration,” he wrote, “I did too, so I made the

decision to significantly increase our investments.”

Instead he said “macroeconomic downturn” and “increased competition” caused revenue to be much lower

than expected

“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he said.

The announcement of job cuts was widely expected.

Mr Zuckerberg told hundreds of Meta executives of the plans on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

According to Facebook, the employees who will be retrenched will receive 16 weeks of
basic salary and two weeks of additional salary per year.

Priorities

Mr Zuckerberg said the company would focus on high-priority growth areas, like artificial intelligence, advertising, and “our long-term vision for the metaverse”.

Meta will also cut costs elsewhere – including reducing its spending on buildings and offices, and increasing desk-sharing.

Affected Meta employees will receive an email soon, he said, and will have an opportunity to ask questions.

US employees will receive redundancy payments worth 16 weeks pay plus a week for every year worked. Additional benefits will also include continuing to provide family health insurance for six months.

Support outside the US will be similar, but there will be a separate redundancy process to take into account local employment laws.

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