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Facebook parent company Meta announced extensive layoffs on Wednesday, shedding 11,000 jobs, or about 13% of its staff, amid an industrywide slowdown that has rattled Silicon Valley in recent months.
The cuts represent the first sweeping workforce reduction the company has undertaken since it was founded in 2004 and the latest sign that once-invincible tech behemoths are in a moment of reckoning.
Calling the layoffs “some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company overhired during the pandemic, assuming the ultra-rapid growth would keep going.
“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,” Zuckerberg wrote in an message to employees. “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
Meta, which has around 87,000 employees, has recently undergone belt-tightening measures like hiring freezes and eliminating nonessential travel, as the company experiences major change on two fronts.
