Meta, the parent company of Facebook, recently implemented a series of job cuts across its various business and operations units as part of its larger plan to eliminate 10,000 positions. This round of layoffs marks the final phase of the three-part plan that was initially announced in March.
Numerous employees working in teams such as marketing, site security, enterprise engineering, program management, content strategy, and corporate communications took to LinkedIn to announce their unfortunate job losses. Additionally, Meta reduced the number of employees in units focused on privacy and integrity, as indicated by the LinkedIn posts.
Earlier this year, Meta became the first major technology company to announce a second round of massive layoffs. In the previous fall, over 11,000 employees were let go. These cuts brought the company's headcount back to approximately mid-2021 levels, following a period of rapid workforce expansion that doubled its size since 2020.
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Despite the job cuts, Meta's shares closed slightly higher in a generally weaker market. The company's stock has more than doubled in value this year and is regarded as one of the top performers in the S&P 500 index, mainly due to Meta's emphasis on artificial intelligence and its cost-cutting measures.
In March, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the majority of the layoffs from the second round would occur in three phases over several months, with the process largely concluding in May. He also mentioned the possibility of smaller rounds of layoffs happening thereafter.
The cuts primarily affected non-engineering roles, underscoring the importance of engineering positions within Meta. Zuckerberg has expressed his commitment to significantly restructure the business teams and revert to a more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.
Even among the technology teams, non-engineering positions such as content design and user experience research have been eliminated to a greater extent, according to executives who spoke at a company town hall meeting following the previous round of layoffs in April.
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During the town hall, Zuckerberg disclosed that around 4,000 employees lost their jobs in April, following a smaller reduction in the recruiting teams in March.
Meta announced that the latest wave of cuts would likely impact approximately 490 employees at its international headquarters in Dublin, representing almost 20 per cent of its Irish workforce.
In addition to these layoffs, two prominent executives in India, Avinash Pant (Director of Marketing) and Saket Jha Saurabh (Director and Head of Media Partnerships) were also let go.
Meta's decision to downsize its workforce comes after experiencing months of slowing revenue growth, influenced by high inflation and a decline in digital advertising due to the contraction of the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom.
Meanwhile, the company has been investing billions of dollars into its Reality Labs unit, which focuses on developing the metaverse and enhancing its infrastructure to support artificial intelligence endeavours. The Reality Labs unit incurred a loss of $13.7 billion in 2022.
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