An American multinational technology conglomerate, Meta has cut over 11,000 jobs, which is nearly 13% of its workforce.
In a letter to employees on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that layoffs contend with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told hundreds of executives on Tuesday that he was accountable for the company’s downturn. He also said that he was accountable for the company’s missteps and that his overoptimism about growth had led to overstaffing, the report added.
Meta has seen an economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising. The company’s biggest revenue source has contributed to Meta’s woes. This summer, Meta posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.
Zuckerberg said he had made a mistake in previously moving to hire aggressively, expecting rapid growth even after the pandemic ended.
“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
“Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that”, Mark Zuckerberg added.
“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas. So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year”, Mark Zuckerberg added.
Mark Zuckerberg further said, “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
Layoffs Impact in India
The worst lay-off in the global tech industry by Meta, which saw 11,000 employees being shown the door, has hit India teams too, albeit marginally, reliable sources said on Wednesday.
In one of the worst lay-offs ever in the tech industry after Twitter – which saw 90 per cent of India team being sacked – Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg fired about 13 per cent of the global workforce and extended hiring freeze through Q1 2023.
Sources told IANS that layoffs impacted Meta India team across verticals, although the exact number of affected employees could not be ascertained.
The India unit of Meta did not immediately comment on an IANS query. “We are not providing details on specific team impact,” Meta India said in response.
Meta currently owns some of the biggest platforms social media sites Facebook and Instagram as well as messaging platform Whatsapp.
