Meta to cut 10,000 jobs, 5,000 open roles

Meta Platforms Inc. plans to lay off approximately 10,000 employees and close about 5,000 additional open roles in its second major round of job cuts in the past six months.

The Facebook parent company has been marketing 2023 as a “year of efficiency” in an effort to improve its financial performance and achieve longer-term goals. As part of those efforts, Meta is flattening the organization, cancelling lower priority projects and slowing hiring, chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday.

Bloomberg previously reported that cuts were coming. The world’s largest social networking company in November already laid off 11,000 people, or 13 per cent of its staff.

The Facebook parent company lowered its outlook for 2023 expenses to $86 billion (U.S.) to $92 billion, accounting for the job reductions and other cost-cutting measures. That’s down from $89 billion to $95 billion previously, according to a company filing, and includes about $3 billion to $5 billion in restructuring costs including severance.

Meta employees had been bracing for more layoffs in recent weeks. Zuckerberg has been outspoken about the need to better prioritize projects and investments and has hinted at additional job cuts. Meta began its flattening process this year, eliminating some middle managers and asking others to return to individual contributor roles instead of overseeing other employees. The company expects to announce restructurings and layoffs in tech groups in late April, and business groups in late May, according to the statement. With less hiring overall, Zuckerberg said he’s also reducing the size of the recruiting team.

The company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has seen a slowdown in advertising revenue, leading to its first-ever annual sales decline in 2022. Zuckerberg has shifted Meta’s focus and investment in the past year to virtual reality technology and the so-called metaverse, which he envisions as the next major computing platform. Meta’s employee ranks expanded dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic as demand for the company’s digital services increased and Zuckerberg leaned into the moment.

The social media giant’s head count grew 30 per cent in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and then 23 per cent in 2021. By the time Meta starting eliminating jobs last November, the company had more than 87,000 employees.

As part of its efficiency plan, Meta is focusing on returning to a “more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles,” Zuckerberg said. The company will invest in tools, such as those in artificial intelligence, to help engineers write code faster, to make it “most effective over many years, not just this year.”