In another round of layoffs by tech companies, Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, revealed plans to lay off 10,000 employees as part of a major restructuring effort. Meta also announced that it will not fill 5000 vacant positions.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the layoffs in a blog post addressed to the employees. He said that the move is aimed at making the company flatter and leaner, saying ‘flatter is faster’ and ‘leaner is better’.
The company, which has faced mounting criticism in recent years over its handling of user data and its role in spreading misinformation, said that the layoffs would affect roughly 10% of its global workforce. The move is expected to save the company billions of dollars in the coming years.
However, the second round of layoff by Meta was widely anticipated and is part of restructuring plans that include eliminating lower-priority projects and ‘flattening’ layers in middle management, apart from scrapping hiring plans for 5000 openings. In the first round of layoffs in November 2022, the company laid off 11,000 employees.
Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the decision to lay off so many employees was difficult, but said that it was necessary to ensure the company’s long-term viability. “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,” Zuckerberg wrote.
“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,” he wrote.
He said that since the first round of layoffs last year, many things have gone faster. “In retrospect, I underestimated the indirect costs of lower priority projects,” he said.
Zuckerberg said that he has been working hard to reorient the company around the metaverse, but in order to do that effectively, he needs to streamline the operations and focus the resources on the areas that will drive growth and innovation.
“2022 a humbling wake-up call”@Meta has announced that it is going to cut 10,000 jobs. This is the second round of mass layoffs that the tech giant has announced. @SehgalRahesha tells you more
— WION (@WIONews) March 15, 2023
Watch more: https://t.co/AXC5qRuO3J pic.twitter.com/6FVEloN07O
Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the company has been trying to become “leaner and more efficient “. The company has said that it sees the metaverse as the future of social interaction and entertainment and plans to invest heavily in technology in the coming years. This is the second round of mass layoffs, in November last year, we saw Meta laying off 11,000 employees.
He said that the employees should expect the following in the near future: “over the next couple of months, org leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our orgs, canceling lower priority projects, and reducing our hiring rates.”
He said that after the restructuring is over, Meta plans to lift hiring and transfer freezes in each group.
Talking about the needs to flatten the hierarchy, he wrote that every layer of a hierarchy adds latency and risk aversion in information flow and decision-making. He wrote, “In our Year of Efficiency, we will make our organization flatter by removing multiple layers of management. As part of this, we will ask many managers to become individual contributors. We’ll also have individual contributors report into almost every level — not just the bottom — so information flow between people doing the work and management will be faster.”
Following the announcement of the layoffs, Meta’s stock price rose at least 7 per cent in after-hours trading, as investors responded positively to the company’s efforts to cut costs and refocus its efforts on the metaverse.
The company has not yet released details about which departments or regions will be affected by the layoffs, but said that it would work to provide resources and support to affected employees in the coming weeks.
The news of the layoffs has sparked concern among some employees and industry analysts, who worry that the move could damage morale and lead to a brain drain of talent from the company. However, others have praised Meta for taking bold steps to reposition itself for the future.
The layoffs are expected to take place over the next several months, with the company saying that it hopes to complete the process as quickly and smoothly as possible.
