Facebook parent Meta cuts off over 11,000 jobs

Meta announced on Wednesday that it is cutting 13% of its workforce, which means laying off more than 11,000 employees. Facebook parent Meta also confirms the job cuts will affect all its apps and the Reality Labs sector.

In a letter to his employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement. “I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13 percent 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.” 

Reality Labs runs its virtual-reality operations while owning Messenger, Instagram, and Whatsapp. The social media giant confirmed that Reality Labs’ losses will significantly affect the 2023 growth forecasts. In addition, these losses will grow year after year.

Meta to layoff more than 11,000 employees, 13% of its staff pic.twitter.com/R4ShEJGFiM

— Blockworks (@Blockworks_) November 9, 2022

Even so, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged his commitment to pursuing his metaverse plans. In a message to his employees, he said, “We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high-priority growth areas – like our AI (artificial intelligence) discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse.”

Meta’s lay-offs

Furthermore, Meta’s large-scale layoffs will affect the workforce, which has 87,000 employees. The platform’s stock has been fluctuating for the past months. It was due to Apple’s iOS privacy updates that hit Meta’s revenue and a huge drop in advertiser spending. In addition, Meta reported its second year-after-year earnings drop in the third quarter report.

All the major changes bit into the company’s revenue while Zuckerberg tried to change his social media empire to become the first metaverse company. However, the transformation costs the company billions, and Zuckerberg said its value will only surge by 2023.

Layoffs This Month (% of Workers):

1. Twitter: 50%

2. Cameo: 25%

3. Robinhood: 23%

4. Intel: 20%

5. Snapchat: 20%

6. Coinbase: 18%

7. Opendoor: 18%

8. Stripe: 14%

9. Lyft: 13%

10. Shopify: 10%

11. Meta: “Thousands”

12. Apple: Hiring Freeze

13. Amazon: Hiring Freeze

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) November 8, 2022

Moreover, with Meta’s layoffs, employees holding work visas like H-1Bs are now unsure of their immigration status. Zuckerberg had already addressed the issue. He said, “this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa.” He is offering support to affected employees.

After a week of Twitter’s massive layoffs under its new owner Elon Musk, the job cuts at Meta came next. there are several job cuts across tech industries that hired rapidly during the pandemic. Zuckerberg also said it was a mistake to hire aggressively while expecting massive growth.