Meta announces plans to lay off another 10,000 employees
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Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has announced that it will be laying off an additional 10,000 employees. Meta had already laid off around 13% of its workforce in the fall, and it has become the largest Big Tech firm to announce a second wave of mass layoffs as uncertainty around the economy grows.
Meta set to lay off 10,000 employees
Meta’s stock increased by around 7% after the news of these additional layoffs was announced. The social media company has announced massive job cuts as part of a restructuring plan.
Besides laying off employees, Meta will also scrap hiring plans for around 5,000 new job openings. The company is also doing away with low-priority projects while flattening the layers of middle management.
These changes follow the first mass layoff the company announced during the fall. At the time, the company announced that it would be laying off 11,000 employees, around 13% of its workforce. Before these layoffs, Meta had been on a hiring spree amid strong economic conditions, with the company doubling its employee count from what it was in 2020.
The layoffs come amid fears of an economic downturn as the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates to tame inflation. The increased interest rates have triggered massive layoffs across corporate America, with tech companies leading the way. Since the beginning of 2022, tech companies have laid off over 290,000 employees.
Meta’s restructuring plans
Meta’s layoffs have been the most pronounced across the tech industry. Besides the high-interest rates, the company has faced challenges in its core digital ads business. The company has also invested heavily in its CEO’s plans to build a futuristic metaverse.
Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, sent a message to staff on Tuesday saying that most cost-cutting plans at the company would be announced in the coming months. However, Zuckerberg noted that these cuts would continue until the year’s end.
“For most of our history, we saw rapid revenue growth year after year and had the resources to invest in many new products. But last year was a humbling wake-up call,” Zuckerberg said.
The Meta CEO also unveiled plans to reduce the size of the company’s recruiting team. This division was already affected by the previous layoffs at the company. The company noted that additional restructuring plans at the company would be announced towards the end of April, while cuts to business groups would be announced in May.
One area that Meta is focusing on cutting costs is management, where the company plans to eliminate multiple layers of management. Instead, the company will ask the managers to become individual contributors. Meta will also get rid of non-engineering roles.
Despite these changes, Meta is investing heavily in Reality Labs, its metaverse-oriented division. In 2022, Reality Labs lost $13.7 billion.
