Meta, the owner of Facebook and maker of Meta Quest VR headsets, will cut a further 10,000 jobs this year and close around 5000 additional open roles, as part of a “year of efficiency”.
These cuts come on top of the previous 10,000 job losses announced back in November last year, which equated to a loss of 13 percent of all Meta employees globally.
Announcing the changes publicly via his Facebook page, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg blamed higher US interest rates, global geopolitical instability and increased regulation, on top of last year’s slowdown in revenue which he dubbed as a “humbling wake-up call”.
That said, Zuckerburg noted how Meta was still set on its work developing AI and its experiments creating a metaverse, on top of its work running its popular suite of social apps.
“I believe that we are working on some of the most transformative technology our industry has ever seen,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products. We have the infrastructure to do this at unprecedented scale and I think the experiences it enables will be amazing.
“Our leading work building the metaverse and shaping the next generation of computing platforms also remains central to defining the future of social connection. And our apps are growing and continuing to connect almost half of the world’s population in new ways. This work is incredibly important and the stakes are high. The financial plan we’ve set out puts us in position to deliver it.”
With 5000 jobs to go unfilled, Meta’s own recruitment team will be the first to see cuts as part of this latest round of redundancies. Employees in Meta’s tech groups will then hear if their jobs are safe in April, before business groups find out in May.
“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” Zuckerberg continued. “It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success. They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts. We will support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.”
Several other technology companies have also announced deep job cuts over the past few months, with 10,000 staff set to go at Microsoft as well as 12,000 at Google.
