It’s the second massive round of layoffs at Meta , the company behind Facebook and Instagram. The previous one exceeded 11,000 layoffs in November.
After multiple reports, Meta confirmed that it will lay off 10,000 employees from its global workforce, this being the second massive cut in recent months at the company.
The announcement was made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg , who notes that this process could last until the end of the year.
Mass layoffs
Zuckerberg made a small statement to give more details about it.
“We expect to announce restructuring and layoffs in our technology groups in late April and then in our business groups in late May,” he wrote. In a “small number of cases, it may take until the end of the year to complete these changes.”
In addition to the 10,000 employees who will be laid off, about 5,000 additional vacant positions that did not yet have names are being closed.
As of September 2022, Meta reported a workforce of 87,314, according to securities records. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and 10,000 announced Tuesday, that would reduce Meta ‘s headcount to about 66,000, a reduction of about 25%.
A technological reality
The entire tech industry has suffered from a slowdown after the critical months of the pandemic.
Inflation, high interest rates and the return to face-to-face in many industries have caused technology companies, which enjoyed great popularity and millions in income during the first months of the crisis, to begin to regress to values close to pre-pandemic .
Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more have cut tens of thousands of workers collectively.
In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Meta posted a sharp drop in profit and reported its third straight quarterly decline in revenue. During the earnings call, Zuckerberg promised investors that 2023 would be the “year of efficiency” for the company, following years of heavy investment in growth and a more immersive version of the Internet called the metaverse.