Meta To Lay Off 10,000 Employees In Second Round Of Job Cuts

Facebook-parent Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it would cut 10,000 jobs, the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs as the industry braces for a deep economic downturn.

Meta shares jumped 6% on the news. The widely anticipated job cuts are part of a wider restructuring that will also see the company scrap hiring plans for 5,000 openings, cancel lower-priority projects and flatten layers of middle management.

"I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a message to staff.

Worries of an economic downturn due to rising interest rates have sparked a series of mass job cuts across corporate America: from Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Big Tech firms including Amazon.com and Microsoft.

Meta, which is pouring billions of dollars to build the futuristic metaverse, has struggled with a post-pandemic slump in advertising spending from companies worried about the economic outlook.

In response, Zuckerberg has promised to turn 2023 into the "Year of Efficiency". With the latest move, Meta expects expenses in 2023 to come in between $86 billion and $92 billion, lower than the $89 billion to $95 billion forecast previously.

Zuckerberg said Meta will remove multiple layers of management, ask managers to become individual contributors and give them less than 10 direct reports, which would in turn make the organization "flatter."

"We don't expect to grow headcount as quickly, it makes more sense to fully utilize each manager's capacity and defragment layers as much as possible," he said.

Meta's move in November to slash its headcount by 11,000 marked the first mass layoffs in its 18-year history. Its headcount stood at 86,482 at, 2022-end, up 20% from a year ago.

The tech industry has laid off nearly 290,000 workers since the start of 2022, with about 40% of them coming this year, according to layoff-tracking site layoffs.FYI.

It has been reported that Meta (formerly known as Facebook) will be implementing a second round of job cuts that will result in the layoff of 10,000 employees. The move is part of Meta's efforts to restructure its operations and focus on its long-term goals. The layoffs will affect various departments across the company, including engineering and product teams. It is expected that the job cuts will be implemented in the coming months. This news follows a previous round of job cuts that took place in 2021, which resulted in the layoff of several thousand employees.

Reports have emerged that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is planning to undertake a second round of job cuts, resulting in the layoff of around 10,000 employees. The move comes as the social media giant continues to restructure its operations and align its focus towards long-term goals.

According to sources, the layoffs are expected to affect multiple departments across the company, including engineering and product teams. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had previously announced his plans to create a "metaverse" - a virtual world where users can interact in a more immersive and interconnected manner. To achieve this goal, the company has been investing in AR/VR technology and has been repositioning itself as a "metaverse" company.

The layoffs, therefore, can be seen as a part of Meta's broader effort to streamline its operations and allocate resources towards its future goals. It is also a strategic move to reorganize the company's workforce in alignment with its new focus on the "metaverse."

This isn't the first time Meta has undertaken job cuts. In 2021, the company had laid off several thousand employees as it reorganized its business units. The company had cited the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the reasons for the layoffs.

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Meta has continued to grow and remains one of the largest social media companies globally. With the implementation of this latest round of job cuts, it is clear that Meta is taking decisive action to position itself for the future, with a focus on its vision for the "metaverse."