Home Industry Technology Meta to lay off more than 11,000 employees The company has also extended its hiring freeze through Q1 of next year, with a small number of exceptions by Zainab Mansoor November 9, 2022 Technology giant Meta has decided to lay off more than 11,000 employees, and extend its hiring freeze through Q1 of next year. “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 per cent 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,” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, founder and chairman of Meta said in a message to the employees. In explaining how he reached to this decision, Zuckerberg said that at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, 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. Zuckerberg accepted that so did he. “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.” “We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.” Zuckerberg listed as a few details for employees in the US. These include: Severance. The company will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap. PTO. The company pay for all remaining PTO time. RSU vesting. Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting. Health insurance. The company cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months. Career services. The company provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads. Immigration support. 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. “Outside the US, support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws,” he added. “I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go. For example, 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. Zuckerberg added that the company will roll out more cost-cutting changes like this in the coming months. “We’re also extending our hiring freeze through Q1 with a small number of exceptions. I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point. I’m currently in the middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending.” “Fundamentally, we’re making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs. Zuckerberg thanked those who have been dismissed. “We would not be where we are today without your hard work, and I’m grateful for your contributions,” he added. This announcement follows Twitter’s decision to eliminate around 3,700 jobs – half of its workforce – days after Elon Musk took over as its new boss. Read: Twitter sued for mass layoffs by Musk without enough notice Tags Covid-19 Decision Insurance Investments meta visa 0 Comments You might also like UAE floods: Banks to defer personal, car loan installments for 6 months Apple pulls plug on WhatsApp, Threads in China How to claim insurance due to rain damage: Understanding ‘force majeure’ clause Meta to start labelling all AI-generated content on Facebook, Instagram
In explaining how he reached to this decision, Zuckerberg said that at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, 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. Zuckerberg accepted that so did he. “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.” “We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.” Zuckerberg listed as a few details for employees in the US. These include: Severance. The company will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap. PTO. The company pay for all remaining PTO time. RSU vesting. Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting. Health insurance. The company cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months. Career services. The company provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads. Immigration support. 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. “Outside the US, support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws,” he added. “I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go. For example, 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. Zuckerberg added that the company will roll out more cost-cutting changes like this in the coming months. “We’re also extending our hiring freeze through Q1 with a small number of exceptions. I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point. I’m currently in the middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending.” “Fundamentally, we’re making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs. Zuckerberg thanked those who have been dismissed. “We would not be where we are today without your hard work, and I’m grateful for your contributions,” he added. This announcement follows Twitter’s decision to eliminate around 3,700 jobs – half of its workforce – days after Elon Musk took over as its new boss. Read: Twitter sued for mass layoffs by Musk without enough notice