Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook owner Meta will boot-out more than 11,000 employees.
According to IOL, Zuckerberg stated that the layoffs comprised 13% of the social media giant’s personnel and would have an impact on its research lab working on the metaverse as well as its apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
The tech industry is experiencing a severe downturn, and several large companies have announced massive layoffs. Last Friday, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, fired half of its employees.
“I want to accept responsibility for these actions and how we arrived at this point,” Zuckerberg wrote in a memo to staff.
“I recognize that this is a difficult time for everyone, and I extend my deepest condolences to all affected.”
Zuckerberg told his employees that he had anticipated the increase in e-commerce and online activity during the Covid-19 outbreak to continue, but he said, “I was mistaken, and I accept responsibility for that.”
Troubles
The decline has hit all companies in the sector, with Apple and Amazon both recently reporting disappointing investor returns.
However, Meta faces its own unique challenges.
The plan by Zuckerberg to dedicate billions of dollars to build the metaverse, an immersive version of the web accessible through virtual reality headsets, has alarmed investors.
A year ago, Zuckerberg rebranded the firm Meta to emphasize the company’s dedication to the project. However, the division working on metaverse technology has subsequently lost about $3.5 billion.
In his letter dated Wednesday, he referred to layoffs as a “last resort” despite his repeated hints throughout the year that budget-cutting measures were imminent.
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In addition to maintaining a hiring moratorium into the following year, he stated that further cost-cutting measures were planned.
Fundamentally, we’re doing all these adjustments for two reasons: our revenue forecast is lower than we anticipated at the start of the year, and we want to ensure that we’re working effectively.
Last month, Meta reported earnings of $4.4bn for the third quarter, a decrease of 52% year-over-year that resulted in a 25% decline in its stock price.
The decline in profits occurs despite the fact that its platforms are the most popular in the globe. Facebook claims that over two billion people log on every day.
