Meta announces another mass layoff of 10,000 employees

Ashley Nash
·2 min read
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Meta’s logo can be seen on a sign at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. The company announced an additional round of layoffs on March 14, 2023, cutting 10,000 jobs. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Meta’s logo can be seen on a sign at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. The company announced an additional round of layoffs on March 14, 2023, cutting 10,000 jobs. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez) | Associated Press

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp announced its second round of mass layoffs, cutting 10,000 employees. This move comes just after the company cut 11,000 jobs — 13% of its workforce — in November 2022.

The news: These layoffs are a part of what Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, called the “year of efficiency,” in order to increase productivity and efficiency within the company.

  • Zuckerberg said that the cuts would be “tough,” announcing that 5,000 vacant positions will also be left unfilled.

Details: Zuckerberg said that the “year of efficiency” will include more layoffs, stating that more restructuring announcements will come in late April and late May.

  • The company plans to “flatten” levels of middle management over the next few months, with the goal of developing a “leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long term vision,” Zuckerberg said.

  • Meta stated in a securities filing that Meta expects to lower its annual expenses by nearly $3 billion, per the Wall Street Journal.

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The bigger picture: These major company changes come in light of a slowdown in the company’s revenue in 2022, which Zuckerberg called a “humbling wake-up call.”

  • In three months to December 2022, Meta announced that earnings were down 4% year-on-year, BBC reported. The company still profited more than $23 billion in 2022.

  • Meta isn’t alone in its wave of mass layoffs. The tech industry has seen a trend of revenue cuts over the past year, leading to a series of mass layoffs from several major tech companies.

  • Companies such as Amazon, HP, Zoom, Spotify, and more have laid off large amounts of employees in cost-saving efforts, according to Deseret reporting.

  • “At this point, I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years,” Zuckerberg said. “Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation.”