The additional layoffs that have now been announced would be “tough,” said Zuckerberg, who proclaimed 2023 the “Year of Efficiency” at Meta. “It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate people who have been part of our success.” However, Meta must become “leaner” and improve financially “in a difficult environment”.
With the two layoffs, Meta reduced the number of its employees by around 24 percent. According to Zuckerberg, the first layoffs will affect the recruitment department.
In recent months, numerous US technology companies have decided to make massive job cuts. The Google parent company Alphabet has announced that it will cut around 12,000 jobs worldwide, the software giant Microsoft wants to lay off 10,000 employees and the online giant Amazon more than 18,000 employees.
Due to the poor economic situation, technology groups have come under increasing pressure to cut costs, partly because of the loss of advertising revenue. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, online entrepreneurs hired many new employees as people increasingly shifted their activities online.
Zuckerberg only stated that he wanted to “flatten” Meta “by removing several layers of management”. After the job cuts last year, a “surprising result” was “that many things are going faster”.
Investors reacted positively to the new announcements. The price of Meta stock temporarily gained more than five percent on Tuesday.
