Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has hinted on it new layoff plans, which may affect over 10,000 employees
Just some months back, the tech giant had engaged in similar downsizing of over 11,000 of it’s staffs.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and Chef Executive Officer, announced the planned cuts in a memo to employees on Tuesday.
The circular was titled, “update on our Year of Efficiency.”
The 10,000 layoffs represent 11.6% of the 86,482 full-time employees Meta reported as of the end of 2022. Zuckerberg said Meta also is instituting a hiring freeze, canceling about 5,000 open job positions…
“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,” Zuckerberg wrote in the memo (read it below).
Meta expects to announce restructurings and layoffs in its tech groups in late April, and then the company’s business groups in late May, the CEO continued, adding, “In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes.”
“My hope is to make these org changes as soon as possible in the year so we can get past this period of uncertainty and focus on the critical work ahead,” Zuckerberg wrote. The job cuts are “in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long-term vision.”
With the new round of layoffs, Meta said it now expects full-year 2023 total expenses to be in the range of $86 billion-$92 billion, lowered from $89 billion-$95 billion previously, it disclosed in an SEC filing. The company anticipates restructuring costs of approximately $3 billion-$5 billion related to facilities consolidation charges as well as severance and other personnel costs.
For the fourth quarter of 2022, Meta reported revenue of $32.17 billion, down 4% year over year. (The company said Q4 revenue would have increased 2% on a constant-currency basis.) Net income decreased 55%, to $4.65 billion, as costs ballooned 22% year over year. In announcing the Q4 results last month, Zuckerberg said “our management theme for 2023 is the ‘Year of Efficiency’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization.”
Read some parts of Zuckerberg’s post:
Meta is building the future of human connection, and today I want to share some updates on our Year of Efficiency that will help us do that. The goals of this work are: (1) to make us a better technology company and (2) to improve our financial performance in a difficult environment so we can execute our long term vision.
Our efficiency work has several parallel workstreams to improve organizational efficiency, dramatically increase developer productivity and tooling, optimize distributed work, garbage collect unnecessary processes, and more. I’ve tried to be open about all the work that’s underway, and while I know many of you are energized by this, I also recognize that the idea of upcoming org changes creates uncertainty and stress. My hope is to make these org changes as soon as possible in the year so we can get past this period of uncertainty and focus on the critical work ahead.
Here’s the timeline you should expect: over the next couple of months, org leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our orgs, canceling lower priority projects, and reducing our hiring rates. With less hiring, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruiting team. We will let recruiting team members know tomorrow whether they’re impacted. We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May. 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.
This will be tough and there’s no way around that. It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success. They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts. We will support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.
After restructuring, we plan to lift hiring and transfer freezes in each group. 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. We also aim to have a steady stream of developer productivity enhancements and process improvements throughout the year”
