Meta tillkännager planer på att säga upp 11 000 anställda

  • Meta har haft låga intäkter under olika kvartal och företaget tror att ökad konkurrens spelar en roll.
  • The number of employees at Meta in September was almost double the 48,268 it had at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.
  • Mark Zuckerberg noterade att Meta kan vara inställd på en kulturell förändring i sin verksamhet.

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has meddelat plans to lay off 11,000 employees. This would be the largest layoffs in the company’s nearly two decades of operation. The plan to reduce its workforce follows an underwhelming performance in its core business and the company’s decision to stake its future on the metaverse. Meta’s involvement in the Metaverse has not proven as successful as the firm would have hoped, and its continued investment in the sector has drawn heavy criticism.

Meta joins other tech companies such as Twitter, Google, and Microsoft in cutting down staff as the tech sector has seen reduced revenue due to rising rates, fears of depression, and high inflation. Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the mass layoff in a blog post to employees. He wrote,

Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history. I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go.

After speaking with inside sources, a Wall Street Journal report shared initial rumors of the layoffs over the weekend. However, in his post, Mark reiterated that Meta would extend its hiring freeze, which began early this year, to the first fiscal quarter of the coming year. The job cut will affect several corners of the firm, but Meta’s recruitment team will feel the most impact as the company said it is “planning to hire fewer people next year.”

The Facebook founder said he was to blame for the layoffs, which he said were caused by rising costs and a collapse of its share price. Mark also cited his overinvestment in some sectors and low revenue caused by “the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss.”

“At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Mark wrote on Wednesday.

Mark’s blog post follows shocking revelations that Meta revealed in an October 26 report that showed billions of dollars had been lost in its metaverse development division. The metaverse’s R&D division, Reality Labs, reported a $3.67 billion loss for the third quarter.

Företaget genererade endast $285 miljoner i intäkter under samma kvartal, vilket är det minsta som det hade registrerat under den givna tidsperioden. Aktieägarna i bolaget var chockade över nyheten och orolig about Meta’s chances in the metaverse.

Zuckerberg noted that in addition to the layoffs, the company plans to carry out other cost-cutting changes in the upcoming months. According to him, Meta is reevaluating its real estate needs and “transitioning to desk sharing for people who already spend the most of their time outside the office.” The Facebook founder concluded that Meta was set for a cultural shift in its operations.

Lawrence Weriji
Lawrence Weriji Verifierad författare

Jag har täckt några spännande historier under min karriär som journalist och tycker att blockchain-relaterade historier är väldigt spännande. Jag tror att Web3 kommer att förändra världen och vill att alla ska vara en del av den.

Senaste nytt