Facebook parent Meta plans to eliminate 10,000 jobs in new round of layoffs
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has finalised plans to cut 10,000 jobs this year, becoming the first Big Tech firm to announce a second round of mass layoffs.
In November 2022, Meta announced a reduction of over 11,000 jobs, equivalent to 13% of its workforce, following a prolonged period of hiring. As part of its restructuring plan, the company will eliminate 5,000 planned job openings, discontinue lower-priority projects, and streamline middle management levels to create a more horizontal organisational structure.
While some job cuts will extend until the year-end, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the majority of them will be announced in April and May.
"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 wrote in a memo to staff.
Zuckerberg said that the company plans to further reduce the size of the recruiting team, which was hard-hit by the previous layoffs. Restructurings in the tech group would be announced in late April, and cuts to business groups would come in May.
The move may alleviate concerns among investors who have grown wary of Zuckerberg’s prolific spending as revenue growth from Meta’s main businesses declined amid high inflation and a digital ads pullback from the pandemic-era e-commerce boom.
Meta, which is investing billions of dollars to build a futuristic metaverse, has also faced challenges in adapting to privacy changes led by tech rival Apple and competition for young users from the short video app TikTok.