What you need to know
- Meta previously announced plans to lay off more than 11,000 employees by the end of 2022.
- The company just announced plans to cut another 10,000 jobs.
- Meta has called 2023 its “year of efficiency.”
Meta is telling its employees to prepare for more layoffs as the company continues to shed its workforce. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a publicly released employee update on Tuesday that the company plans to cut its workforce by about 10,000 and close approximately 5,000 unfilled roles.
The move is the company’s latest effort to increase efficiency by optimizing workflows across the company and removing redundant or redundant roles.
“Our efficiency work has multiple parallel workflows to improve organizational efficiency, dramatically increase developer productivity and tooling, optimize distributed work, trash unnecessary processes, and more,” Zuckerberg said in a post. “I’ve tried to be open about all the work that’s going on, and while I know many of you are excited about it, I also recognize that the idea of upcoming organizational changes causes uncertainty and stress.”
Meta will begin cutting recruiting teams as it slows hiring, followed by organizational restructuring and layoffs in its technology groups in late April, and finally members of its business groups. This will involve removing multiple layers of management to improve information flow. Meta will also cancel some low-priority programs, invest in tools to improve efficiency, and encourage more individual work.
“For most of our history, we’ve seen rapid revenue growth year over year and had the resources to invest in many new products,” Zuckerberg continued. “But last year was a humbling wake-up call.” He is referring to the “difficult” decision to lay off 11,000 employees in November, roughly 13% of his workforce. As a result of this new round of cuts, Meta will lay off about 21,000 full-time employees, which the company says could be done by the end of the year.
In its most recent earnings report, Meta designated 2023 as its “Year of Performance,” signaling more changes on the horizon as the company seeks to smooth out its business as it navigates the macroeconomic environment.
“I think things like reducing the layers of management should make information flow better in the company and so you can make decisions faster,” Zuckerberg said on the earnings call. “And I think, in the end, it will help us not only. produce better, better products, but I think it will help us attract and retain the best people who want to work in a faster-moving environment.”
Meta is far from the only company to let go of thousands of employees. Amazon announced two separate rounds of layoffs, cutting its workforce by about 18,000. Microsoft and Alphabet have also cut their workforces, highlighting the company’s shift as they deal with economic pressures after pandemic-related hiring spikes.
As for Meta, the company has made big bets on artificial intelligence and virtual reality, despite some pushback from investors due to the heavy costs racked up by its Reality Labs division. However, despite the losses, Zuckerberg remains committed to the work and the long-term benefits it could bring to the company, even if it means changing how Meta operates.
“My hope is to make these organizational changes as early as possible in the year so we can get through this period of uncertainty and focus on the important work ahead.”