It has been roughly eighteen months since Meta was announced on October 28, 2021, and the rebranded Facebook has seen its share of ups and downs. As Mark Zuckerberg updates on his pitch about 2023 being the year of efficiency the founder/CEO quickly delves into the topic of layoffs. Many in the tech industry would differ with Zuckerberg’s statement by countering that 2023 is the year of layoffs, which Meta began doing in November 2022, and now more are forthcoming.
Mark Zuckerberg announced via the Meta newsroom blog on Tuesday that the company plans to lay off 10,000 more employees. This follows the 11,000 previously laid off in November. He added that on top of that, there are 5,000 open positions that will be eliminated and that select groups would be getting notified in the coming months but for some, it may take until the end of the year for changes to be completed. According to an SEC filing (via CNBC) Meta has stated that its cuts are expected to lower expenses by up to $92 billion.
From Meta:
“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.”
Layoffs.fyi, a website that has been tracking tech layoffs, has included these Mark Zuckerberg updates of 10,000 more, and has updated to report that the total number of layoffs for the tech sector now sits at over 138,000 since January from 485 companies. From Netflix to Gamestop, Microsoft to Amazon, and Zoom to Micron, the announcements have been steadily getting made since March of 2022 and do not seem to have an end in sight.