Meta to cut 10,000 jobs in second round of layoffs

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(Reuters) Facebook-parent Meta Platforms META.O said yesterday it would cut 10,000 jobs this year, making it the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs as the industry braces for a deep economic downturn.

Meta shares jumped nearly 7% on the news. The widely-anticipated job cuts are part of a restructuring that will see the company scrap hiring plans for 5,000 openings, kill off lower-priority projects and “flatten” layers of middle management.

They followed the company’s first mass layoff in the fall, which eliminated more than 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce at the time, after an extensive hiring spree that doubled the employee count it had as of 2020.

In a message to staff, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said most of the cuts would be announced in April and May, though in some cases they would continue through the end of the year.

“For most of our history, we saw rapid revenue growth year after year and had the resources to invest in many new products. But last year was a humbling wake-up call,” Zuckerberg wrote.

“I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years.”

Zuckerberg said he planned to further reduce the size of the recruiting team, which was especially hard-hit in the fall layoffs. Restructurings in the tech group would be announced in late April and cuts to business groups would come in May.

The first of those cuts appeared to come last week. On Friday, the company said it was exploring “strategic alternatives” for Kustomer, a customer service company it acquired last year.