Facebook Parent Meta to Lay Off 11,000 Staff, Cuts Workforce by 13%

Facebook’s parent company Meta is set to lay off 11,000 people and reduce its workforce by 13%, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday (Nov. 9).

The news was shared around 3 a.m. PST.

“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Zuckerberg said in a message sent to Meta’s staff. “I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.”

“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”

In his memo, Zuckerberg blamed the pandemic, saying that the digital growth and “surge of e-commerce” experienced during the early days of COVID-19 – when lockdowns meant people were stuck at home – seemed as though it would become a “permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended.”

“I [predicted this] too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments,” he said. “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”