CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will lay off about 10,000 employees and close 5,000 vacancies in the company in the coming months. The cuts are part of Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” plan, and these numbers add to the layoffs of 11,000 employees last November.
Zuckerberg shared his ad on Facebook Facebook, where he briefly laid out a timeline for Meta’s restructuring. Layoffs begin with hiring teams today, March 15th, while other employees find out if their jobs have been laid off in April and May. In some cases, Zuckerberg noted, these changes may not happen until the end of 2023, and international teams may not share the same schedule.
The layoffs come with the closing of 5,000 open positions and plans for sweeping organizational changes at the Meta, too. “Since we reduced our workforce last year, one surprising result has been that many things have moved faster,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Looking back, I underestimated the indirect costs of lower-priority projects.”
He added, “A smaller organization will execute on its higher priorities faster. People will be more productive, and their work will be more enjoyable and satisfying. We will become a greater magnet for the most talented people. That’s why in our Year of Efficiency, we focus on eliminating duplicate or lower-priority projects and making every organization as few as possible.”
When you include the layoffs the company made last November, the total Meta layoffs for its employees over the next few months will be about 21,000, about 24% of its workforce. The company joins other tech giants such as Microsoft, Twitter and Google in a series of layoffs that have left tens of thousands of people out of work.