On Wednesday, it was unknown how many employees in the Austin region may be impacted by Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, which announced plans to fire 11,000 people or 13% of its global staff. The layoffs were disclosed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a letter to staff on Wednesday, citing a downturn in the company’s income as well as broader issues in the technology sector.
More than 2,000 Meta staff members work for various Facebook divisions in Austin. The number of employees in Austin who will be affected by the layoffs was not disclosed by the corporation. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and Meta Platforms, announced on Wednesday that the business would be letting go of 11,000 people in order to deal with declining sales.
In order to better represent its expanding focus on the metaverse, Meta, which is also the parent company of Instagram, Whatsapp, and Meta Quest, changed its name to Meta in October 2021. Meta had around 87,000 employees as of the end of September.
Facebook Is Laying Off Staffers. These Teams Could Be Affected Most: https://t.co/Dw0TV8L0a2
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) November 9, 2022
”Today I’m going to talk about some of the hardest modifications we’ve ever undertaken for Meta. I’ve made the decision to let more than 11,000 of our excellent workers go in order to lower the size of our workforce by roughly 13%. By reducing discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1, we are also adopting a number of additional measures to become a leaner and more effective organization, Zuckerberg added.
The cuts, according to Zuckerberg, will affect every department within the business. Employees at Meta who are laid off will be informed on Wednesday and will receive 16 weeks of compensation plus an extra two weeks for each year of service. According to Zuckerberg, the business would also pay for health insurance for six months.
The company announced last month that it will not be relocating to a new office building in downtown Austin, which led to job losses at Meta. In a mixed-use tower called Sixth and Guadalupe, the company declared that it will sublet 589,000 square feet rather than occupy it entirely.
“.. Zuckerberg appeared downcast in Tuesday’s meeting and said he was accountable for the company’s missteps, and that his over-optimism about growth had led to overstaffing ..”$META @WSJ https://t.co/2TJVYY2IYz
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) November 9, 2022
At the time, Andrea Beasley, a Meta spokesman, said in a statement, “We are now examining our real estate portfolio internationally and making focused, balanced investments to support our most significant long-term initiatives and lead the way in establishing the workplace of the future.”
The business still maintains a number of offices in Austin, including space in the Domain in North Austin and two offices in the downtown Third + Shoal skyscraper. Additionally, the business intends to build an $800 million data center in Temple, which is scheduled to open in 2024.
“Beehive of activity”: Samsung’s massive expansion is well underway in Taylor. Zuckerberg admitted on Wednesday that he had projected that e-commerce would have a long-term boom at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. which prompted him to raise the stakes dramatically. But such patterns did not hold, he said, and the company’s revenue has fallen as a result of the general economic downturn and heightened competition.
Unfortunately, it did not turn out how Zuckerberg had anticipated, he said. I acknowledge that I made a mistake and accept responsibility. Since the corporation began concentrating on the metaverse approximately a year ago, it has also been experiencing difficulties.
Zuckerberg claimed that Meta’s decisions to cut costs will enable it to forge a more secure future. “I think our company is now greatly underrated. Our communities are always expanding, and billions of people utilize our services to connect,” remarked Zuckerberg.
“Our main line of business is among the most successful ever established, and it has enormous future potential. And we’re at the forefront of creating the technologies that will determine how people will connect in the future and what the next computing platform will look like. We carry out crucial historical work. If we work hard, I have no doubt that we’ll emerge from this recession stronger and more resilient than ever.
The layoffs, according to Wedbush Industries analyst Dan Ives who monitors the technology sector, are a reflection of the company’s continued turmoil. Meta layoffs are a warning that Zuckerberg & Co. are in for a rough time. The metaverse plan is still a mystery, and social media headwinds are building, according to Ives. “Zuckerberg must get through this storm and go on to better times. With its growth, Facebook has reached midnight, and the painful layoffs have started.
The announcement of Meta’s layoffs comes just one week after Twitter, the popular social media platform bought by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a Texan, reduced its employees in half. In recent months, a number of well-known technology businesses, including Austin-based Tesla, Snapchat, and Amazon, have announced layoffs or hiring restrictions.