Meta to lay off over 11,000 employees: CEO Mark Zuckerberg

“There is no good way to do a layoff, but we hope to get all the relevant information to you as quickly as possible and then do whatever we can to support you through this,”
Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post.

He also said that Meta will extend hiring freeze through Q1 with a “small number of exceptions”.

The
broad job cuts, the first in Meta’s 18-year history, follow thousands of layoffs at other tech giants, including Elon Musk-owned Twitter and Microsoft Corp.

“Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected,” Zuckerberg said in a message to employees.

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

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Zuckerberg further stressed on the need to become more capital efficient and said the company would shift resources to “high priority growth areas” such as its AI discovery engine, ads and business platforms, as well as its metaverse project.

For sacked employees, Meta said it would pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service as a part of the severance package and all remaining paid time off.

Employees will get cost of healthcare for six months and those impacted will receive their Nov. 15 vesting, according to the company.

Meta said it also plans to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter.

“We made the decision to remove access to most Meta systems for people leaving today given the amount of access to sensitive information. But we’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said he is in the “middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending”.

“As we build our AI infrastructure, we’re focused on becoming even more efficient with our capacity. Our infrastructure will continue to be an important advantage for Meta, and I believe we can achieve this while spending less,” he said, amid repeated criticism from shareholders over metaverse spending.

The company’s shares, which have lost more than two-thirds of their value, were up about 3% in pre market trading.