Meta layed off over 11,000 employees which is 13% of its entire workforce. The news went out this morning to Meta employees and was followed by a message from Mark Zuckerberg about the massive layoffs.
Alongside cutting jobs, Meta will also cut discretionary spending as well as extend its hiring freeze to Q1 of 2023.
Zuckerberg claimed full responsibility for this and said he made the descion to significantly increase Meta's investments. The increase in investments was caused by the growth in revenue that Meta has generated during the pandemic as users were spending more on e-commerce. However revenue after the pandemic has dipped and become lower for Meta.
Employees who have been layed off will receive a severance package of 16 weeks as their base as well as two additional weeks for every year worked at Meta. Meta will also cover healthcare for affected employees and their families for 6 months.
The company promises to help their layed off employees find new jobs as well as help employees who are on a visa.
Unlike Twitter however, Meta will still allow employees to use their work email addresses for 1 more day.
The news of the layoffs from Meta come a week after Twitter layed off nearly half of its entire workforce after Elon Musk's acquisition of the company.
But Meta handled the layoffs much better than Twitter did, and Zuckerberg very clearly addressed the issue and why he has to make the descion to reduce headcount.
Meta hasn't been doing well recently with its stock being the worst performer in the S&P 500 and it has lost nearly $10 billion on its investments on the Metaverse. The company expects to lose more in 2023.
Zuckerberg has hinted that a massive layoff was coming in Meta's latest earnings call where he claimed some teams will shrink in size and Meta will become a slightly smaller organization.
