At the end of February, news surfaced that Meta was planning another huge round of layoffs after letting go of 11,000 employees in November. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has now announced details on the next big wave of layoffs coming soon that will mark what he calls the “Year of Efficiency.”
Zuckerberg published the message he sent Meta employees publicly on Facebook today.
“I just shared this update on our Year of Efficiency with Meta employees…
Meta is building the future of human connection, and today I want to share some updates on our Year of Efficiency that will help us do that. The goals of this work are: (1) to make us a better technology company and (2) to improve our financial performance in a difficult environment so we can execute our long term vision.”
To work toward those goals, Zuckerberg says the company needs to become leaner. So “over the next couple of months” leaders at Meta will announce restructuring plans “focused on flattening our orgs, canceling lower priority projects, and reducing our hiring rates.”
Zuckerberg says “Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired.”
Combined with the 11,000 people that lost their jobs last fall which was roughly 13% of the company’s headcount, this next wave of cuts could see the total layoffs push 30% of Meta staff.
For context, Meta increased its staff by almost 100% from 2019 to 2022 while Apple’s headcount only increased by 20%.
Zuckerberg came under fire in The Washington Post story about the alleged new round of layoffs as he predicted back in the fall that only one big round of job cuts would be needed. However, Meta took issue with that saying Zuckerberg gave a heads-up in January this year that more cuts were likely coming.
In today’s letter, he acknowledged “that this update may still feel surprising, so I’d like to lay out some broader context on our vision, our culture, and our operating philosophy.” He also shared a few words of “gratitude” to the talented people that will lose their jobs:
“This will be tough and there’s no way around that. It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success. They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts. We will support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.”
Time will tell how the “Year of Efficiency” goes for Meta. Continuing its big bet on the metaverse, the company has a notable challenge for 2023 following its AR/VR division Reality Labs losing a massive $13.7 billion in 2022.
You can read the full message from Zuckerberg here.
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