More than 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce, will be let go from Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced to staff on Wednesday.
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to staff.
The mass layoffs, the first in Meta’s 18-year history, came just one week after Twitter’s new owner, billionaire Elon Musk, and other digital businesses, which hired a lot of people during the COVID-19 pandemic, eliminated thousands of jobs.
Zuckerberg claimed that even after the pandemic ended, he had also anticipated tremendous growth. In his letter, he stated, “Unfortunately, this did not turn out the way I expected.
“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”.
As more people stayed at home and scrolled on their phones and laptops during pandemic lockdowns, Meta, like other social media companies, saw an increase in revenue.
However, as the lockdowns ended and people resumed venturing outside, the growth of revenue slowed.
After reporting a steep decline in earnings in October, Meta alarmed investors and experienced a 20% decline in its share price in the third quarter.