Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees today that the company will be laying off 13% of its staff, or more than 11,000 employees.
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to staff posted on the Meta blog.
“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,” Zuckerberg said. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”
Zuckerberg noted that at the start of Covid when the world rapidly moved online the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. This led some, including Zuckerberg to predict “this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended”
“I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. 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. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Zuckerberg went on to say that he viewed “layoffs as a last resort” and talked about other cost reduction measures: “as we shrink our real estate footprint, we’re transitioning to desk sharing for people who already spend most of their time outside the office. We’ll roll out more cost-cutting changes like this in the coming months.”
Meta’s stock has plunged 71% this year following several quarters of disappointing earnings and a drop in revenue. Shares in the company were up about 4% in premarket trading following the layoff announcement.
The company also published details as to how the layoffs will work;
Some of the details in the US include:
- Severance. We will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap.
- PTO. We’ll pay for all remaining PTO time.
- RSU vesting. Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting.
- Health insurance. We’ll cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months.
- Career Services. We’ll provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads.
- Immigration support. I know this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa. There’s a notice period before termination and some visa grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make plans and work through their immigration status. We have dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based on what you and your family need.
“Outside the US, support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws,” Zuckerberg added.
