Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) started carrying out the last batch of a three-part round of layoffs on Wednesday, May 24th, as part of a plan announced in March to eliminate 10,000 roles, news agency Reuters reported quoting inside sources.
After letting more than 11,000 employees go earlier this year, Meta became the first big tech corporation to announce a second wave of big layoffs. After a hiring spree that doubled the company’s workforce since 2020, the layoffs reduced its headcount to where it stood as of roughly mid-2021.
On Wednesday, many workers who were part of the marketing, recruiting, engineering, and corporate communications departments announced their layoffs on LinkedIn, Reuters reported.
Meta shares increased by 0.5% in a low-lying market on Wednesday. Meta’s emphasis on a cost-cutting push through the use of artificial intelligence, its share value has more than doubled in 2023 and is among the best performers in the S&P 500 index.
Meta’s founder-cum-CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in March that the bulk of the layoffs in the company’s second round would take place in three “moments” over several months, largely finishing in May. Some smaller rounds of layoffs could continue after that, he had said.
The majority of the positions affected by the new round of layoffs in the corporation are not in engineering, which underscores the importance of code writers at Meta. Zuckerberg pledged in March to restructure business teams “substantially” and return to a “more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles”.
Executives appearing at a company town hall subsequently told the news agency, even among layoffs targeted primarily at technical teams, the corporation significantly eliminated non-engineering roles like content design and user experience research.
About 4,000 employees lost their jobs in the April layoffs, Zuckerberg said during the town hall, following a smaller hit to recruiting teams in March.
The layoffs at Meta came after months of revenue growth slowing down due to rising inflation and a digital ad pullback from the pandemic e-commerce boom. Other major big tech corporations, including software giant Microsoft, have also resorted to layoffs even though their profits are surging, raising questions on the motive of these job cuts in the post-pandemic period.
