*Facebook’s parent company Meta announced Wednesday that more than 11,000 employees will be laid off.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that 13% of Meta’s staff will be booted to reduce costs “following disappointing earnings and a drop in revenue,” NDTV writes.
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Zuckerberg said in a blog post. “I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.”
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” Zuckerberg said.
READ MORE: Mark Zuckerberg Announces Staff Layoffs at Meta
“This is a sad moment, and there’s no way around that. To those who are leaving, I want to thank you again for everything you’ve put into this place,” Zuckerberg added.
Those impacted will receive 16 weeks of pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service. Meta will cover health insurance for six months, according to reports.
Meta Platforms (META), the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, saw its market capitalization for this year fall by nearly $545 billion. In the third quarter, shares fell 15%, a loss of $57.5 billion in market value, reported by MSN.
Zuckerberg warned at the end of June that the popular social media platforms were headed for “one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history.” He reportedly told employees that the workforce will be cut for the first time since the company was founded in 2004.
“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now,” Zuckerberg said at the time, according to Bloomberg. “But from what we’re seeing, it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively.”
Meta reportedly intends to freeze hiring, restructure some teams and reduce budgets for other teams.
“Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year. Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas, and I wanted to give our leaders the ability to decide within their teams where to double down, where to backfill attrition, and where to restructure teams while minimizing thrash to the long term initiatives,” Zuckerberg told analysts during the second-quarter-earnings call in July.
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