Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has revealed plans to slash staff by 13%, or around 11,000. Zuckerberg released a statement regarding his decision early last night.
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” he said in his statement. “I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go.”
According to Zuckerberg, the the layoffs occured because of a mistake made during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The “rush of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth” as companies allowed more workers to work remotely to keep other workers healthy. Zuckerberg bet big that the boom would continue after the epidemic passed.
“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,” Zuckerberg said. “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Zuckerberg claims that in order to adapt to this new reality, Meta will have to become more “capital efficient”. They will focus more on AI discovery engine, their ads and business platforms, and their long-term vision for the metaverse.
Zuckerburg ended his statement saying “For now, I’ll say one more time how thankful I am to those of you who are leaving for everything you’ve done to advance our mission.”
Furthermore, Mark Zuckerberg said he would offer the best compensation to those affected. Not only that, Meta will also stop hiring new employees until early 2023
