While many of these companies boomed during the coronavirus pandemic, some of the largest ones have reported financial results in recent weeks that showed they are feeling the fallout of global economic jitters. Meta joins other tech companies, such as Snap, that have laid off employees as economic conditions have grown more challenging. Laid-off workers and their families will have health care paid for six months. As the Silicon Valley headquarters began waking up Wednesday, employees described tense hours as people stared at their inboxes awaiting news.įor those who lost their job in the United States, Meta said it would pay severance of 16 weeks of their base pay, along with two additional weeks for every year they worked at the company. Meta began notifying European-based employees of the cuts during their morning, with those retaining their jobs receiving emails just minutes after those who were laid off, three employees said. The company will focus on a smaller number of “high priority” areas, he said, including artificial intelligence, advertising and the metaverse. “This will add up to a meaningful cultural shift in how we operate,” he said. On Wednesday, laid-off employees immediately lost access to most corporate systems, though their email accounts will remain active until the end of the day “so everyone can say farewell,” Mr. A hiring freeze was extended until March. Zuckerberg said that budgets would be reduced, including some employee perks, and that the company would cut back on real estate. The reduction in Meta’s work force was an attempt to rein in some of the exuberance that came to define an era of success in Silicon Valley. “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.” “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Mr. Meta’s number of employees at the end of September was 28 percent higher than a year earlier. He said he had thought the shift would be permanent, leading him to significantly increase spending.
Zuckerberg attributed the cuts on Wednesday to growing too quickly during the pandemic, when a surge in online commerce led to a big spike in revenue. Its stock has dropped roughly 70 percent this year. Last month, Meta posted a 50 percent slide in quarterly profits and its second straight sales decline, even as its spending soared by 19 percent. New competitors like TikTok emerged to capture a younger audience while Meta’s services lost their sheen. At one point last year, Meta was valued at $1 trillion.īut the company has struggled financially this year as it has tried to move into a new business - the immersive world of the so-called metaverse - while grappling with a global economic slowdown and a decline in digital advertising, the main source of its revenue. Not even scrutiny over its data privacy practices and the toxic content on its apps could dent its financial performance, as its stock continued climbing and its revenues soared. Meta spent lavishly over the years, accumulating users, buying companies such as Instagram and WhatsApp, and showering its employees with enviable perks. The cuts - nearly triple the number that Twitter slashed last week, though not as deep a percentage - represent a stunning reversal of fortune for a once high-flying company whose ambition and room for growth had seemed limitless. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” Zuckerberg, 38, wrote in a letter to employees. “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Mr. Zuckerberg has bet big on, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The divisions that were not cut as steeply included engineers working on projects related to the metaverse, the immersive online world that Mr. The layoffs were made across departments and regions, with areas like recruiting and business teams affected more than others. Meta said it was laying off more than 11,000 people, or about 13 percent of its work force, in what amounted to the company’s most significant job cuts. At the end of September, it had amassed its largest-ever number of workers, totaling 87,314 people.īut on Wednesday, the company - now renamed Meta - began cutting jobs, and deeply. Since Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, the Silicon Valley company has steadily hired more employees.
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