It’s not a great time to be working for Meta. For at least 11,000 people, at least, that won’t be a problem anymore. The downside is that those 11,000 people are set to be unemployed rather soon.
Mark Zuckerberg, in a message to his employees (and the entire internet), has announced massive layoffs for the social media company. 13% of Meta’s workforce are set to ‘pursue other opportunities’ in the coming days. In addition, the company is “…cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1”.
Meta? I barely knew her
This is the first time that Zuckerberg’s company has laid off staff and the metaverse-happy CEO is claiming responsibility for the action. Which… is entirely his job, really. The blame is being laid on Zuckerberg believing the spike in online activity generated by the COVID pandemic was a “permanent acceleration”. Meta increased spending on a trend that turned out to be temporary.
“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,” said Zuckerberg.
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This will be cold comfort to the employees who will find themselves out of work. The company will pay severance packages and provide a range of assistance. This includes funding health insurance (in the States) for six months after the layoffs). Those on Visas will also receive a spot of help.
As far as who is affected, it’s basically the entire company. Everyone will see their teams trimmed but some more than others. Since Meta’s Recruitment team won’t have much to do next year, they’re in for a particularly nasty time. Anyone not working on AI discovery, ads, business platforms, and the metaverse is also likely to be watching email inboxes nervously.