Meta to lay off 10,000 staff by end of year
Facebook firm also halting new hires, layoffs follow 11,000 job cuts announced in November
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Meta has announced it will lay off 10,000 staff and retire 5,000 open roles that haven't been filled yet by the end of the year.
In a post announcing the decision on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the company's goals to improve its financial health and to be more efficient in what was labelled the "year of efficiency" in its latest financial results.
Zuckerberg detailed upcoming restructuring plans in the company, and said lower priority projects will be cancelled and hiring slowed down.
"With less hiring, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team," he wrote yesterday, saying that members of the recruiting team will be notified today whether they're laid off.
"We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May," he continued. "In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes. Our timelines for international teams will also look different, and local leaders will follow up with more details. Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven't yet hired."
After the restructuring is complete, the hiring freeze should be lifted, Zuckerberg added.
"Other relevant efficiency timelines include targeting this summer to complete our analysis from our hybrid work year of learning so we can further refine our distributed work model," he also said. "We also aim to have a steady stream of developer productivity enhancements and process improvements throughout the year."
Zuckerberg explained that the reason he's sharing these restructuring plans months in advance is because of feedback from the previous round of layoffs, with employees asking for more transparency.
Meta laid off 13% if its workforce (about 11,000 people) last November. In 2022, the firm's net income fell 41% and Meta's VR division lost nearly $14 billion.
Earlier this month, a leaked presentation detailed the company's plans for AR and VR, including three more VR headsets and a Quest 3 reportedly due this year.
The Meta Quest Pro, which launched last October with a $1,500 price tag, was discounted to $1,000 last week. The Quest 2 also saw a price drop at the same time.
John Carmack, who was executive consultant for virtual reality with Meta, resigned last December and was vocal about the firm's lack of effectiveness.