Zuckerberg: „I was wrong“ – Meta puts 11,000 employees on the street

Zuckerberg: „I was wrong“ – Meta puts 11,000 employees on the street

8. Januar 2023 0 Von Horst Buchwald

Zuckerberg: „I was wrong“ – Meta puts 11,000 employees on the street

San Francisco, 1/7/2023

Meta is shedding more than 11,000 jobs, or about 13% of the workforce, as the company struggles with lower-than-expected earnings, Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Wednesday.

The layoffs will impact many departments but disproportionately affect Meta’s recruiting team, the CEO said. It is the first major job cut since Meta was founded as Facebook in 2004.

Zuckerberg said the pandemic caused sales to grow disproportionately as time spent online and e-commerce surged. He added:

that many people, including himself, predicted that this would be a permanent trend. As a result, he decided to significantly increase Meta’s investments. „I was wrong, and I take responsibility for it,“ Zuckerberg wrote.

In addition to a slowdown in online commerce, the company’s revenues have been hurt by increased competition, a loss in digital advertising and the overall macroeconomic downturn, he wrote.

Meta will take other actions to become „leaner and more efficient,“ including extending a hiring freeze through Q1 2023 and cutting its discretionary spending. The company also plans to shift some resources to higher-priority growth areas, including AI, the metaverse, and displays.

Regardless of this, Meta could face new fines in the EU for antitrust violations. Brussels is reportedly preparing charges against Meta for „using customer data and coupling its classifieds service to its social network.“