Mark Zuckerberg’s “Sorry” For 11,000 Layoffs, That’s 13% Of Meta’s Team

Mark Zuckerberg said, “I am especially sorry to those impacted,” taking responsibility for the 11000 layoffs.

Meta Inc. Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will lay off more than 11,000 employees in the first major round of layoffs in the company’s history.The layoffs, which equal to about 13% of the workforce, were announced in a statement on Wednesday. The company will also extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter.

What Zuckerberg said

“I want to accept responsibility for these decisions and how we arrived here,” Zuckerberg said in a statement delivered to Meta employees and posted on the company’s website. “I know this is difficult for everyone, and I’m especially sorry for those who have been affected.”

The company said that While cuts will be made across the board, the company’s recruiting team will be disproportionately impacted, and its business teams will be restructured “more substantially.” Meta will also reduce its real estate footprint, examine its infrastructure spending, and transition some employees to desk sharing, with additional cost-cutting announcements expected in the coming months.

Meta stock has fallen 71% this year

Meta, whose stock has fallen 71% this year, is cutting costs after several quarters of disappointing earnings and revenue declines. The retrenchment, the most severe since Facebook’s beginning in 2004, reflects a sharp slowdown in the digital advertising market, an economy on the verge of recession, and Zuckerberg’s multibillion-dollar investment in a speculative virtual-reality push known as the Metaverse.

In the statement, Zuckerberg stated that he anticipated the surge in e-commerce and web traffic that began with the Covid-19 lockdowns to be part of a permanent acceleration. “However, due to the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ad signal loss, our revenue has been significantly lower than expected.

What Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. are doing.

Meta is the latest in a string of technology companies to announce layoffs or halt hiring in recent weeks. Salesforce Inc. announced on Tuesday that it had laid off hundreds of salespeople, while Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Alphabet Inc. have all slowed or halted hiring. Snap Inc., the parent company of rival app Snapchat, is also cutting back, announcing in August that it would lay off 20% of its workforce.

Twitter Inc. laid off roughly half of its workforce last week in a particularly chaotic round of layoffs, with many employees gaining knowledge they’d lost their jobs when they were suddenly detached from Slack or email.

Ex-Meta Employees will get these benefits

Employees at Meta will continue to have access to their emails in order to say goodbye to colleagues. According to Zuckerberg. Employees in the United States who were laid off will receive 16 weeks of their base salary as severance pay, plus two weeks for each year they worked for the company. In addition, the company provides six months of health-care coverage, as well as career services and immigration assistance. According to the company, compensation packages will be similar outside of the United States in accordance with local employment laws.

For Meta Investors Zuckerberg said have patience

Zuckerberg has been pleading with investors to be patient as he invests billions in his vision for the next big computing platform after mobile phones: the Metaverse, a collection of digital worlds accessible via virtual and augmented-reality devices. The effort necessitates significant investments in hardware and research, which may not pay off for many years from now.

Meanwhile, growth at Facebook’s flagship social network has slowed. By experimenting with a more interest-based algorithm and short-form videos called Reels, the company is working to accelerate it and continue to add users to photo-sharing app Instagram.