Facebook parent Meta cuts 11,000 jobs, 13% of workforce

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce. struggles with unstable income and the broader challenges of the tech industry, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said letter to employees Wednesday.

The job cuts come just a week after mass layoffs at Twitter under new ownership, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that have been hiring rapidly during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg also said he made the decision to hire aggressively, expecting rapid growth even after the pandemic ends.

“Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said in a prepared statement. “Not only has e-commerce returned to previous trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition and loss of advertising signal have resulted in our revenue being much lower than I expected. I made a mistake and I am responsible for it.”

Meta, like other social media companies, saw a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era as more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But when the lockdown ended and people started going out again, income growth started to slow down.

Slowing economic growth and a bleak outlook for online advertising — by far Meta’s biggest source of revenue — have contributed to Meta’s woes. Meta published it this summer the first ever drop in quarterly revenuewhich was followed by another, larger drop in the fall.

Some of the challenges are company-specific, and some are related to broader economic and technological forces.

Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees. part of a chaotic overhaul when Musk took the reins. He tweeted that he had no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4 million a day,” though he did not provide details on the losses.

Meta worried investors pouring more than $10 billion a year into the “meta universe” as he shifts his focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts that the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way we use technology.

Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. There is also a problem Apple Privacy Toolswhich make it harder for social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.

Competition from TikTok is also a growing threat as young people flock to the video-sharing app over Instagram, which Meta also owns.

“We’ve cut costs across our business, including cutting budgets, cutting benefits and reducing our real estate footprint,” Zuckerberg said. “We are restructuring the teams to improve efficiency. But these measures alone will not bring our costs in line with revenue growth, so I have also made the difficult decision to let people go.”

Zuckerberg told employees on Wednesday that they would receive an email notifying them if they were among those to be let go. He said access to most of the company’s systems would be cut off for the people who lose their jobs because of the sensitive nature of that information.

“We keep email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say goodbye,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said the former employees will receive 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for each year they worked for the company. Health insurance for these employees and their families will continue for six months.

Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. jumped 4% before the opening bell on Wednesday.