Social media giant Meta announced on Tuesday that it will let go of 10,000 employees in a second round of layoffs, following the initial bout of layoffs only four months ago. In November 2022, the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm had let go of 11,000 staff members.
In a message to employees, Meta’s chief executive officer Zuckerberg said, "We expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired." Following the news, Meta's shares were up 2 per cent during pre-market trading hours.
The continued layoffs are in line with Zuckerberg's push for 2023 to become a "Year of Efficiency" for the Facebook-parent company. In 2023, the company plans to cut costs to the tune of $5 billion. Meta’s cost-cutting measures came into place after the firm faced a slump in its advertising revenue following the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The November layoffs were the first mass layoffs in the 18-year history of the popular social media platform. Layoffs have become common in the global tech sector since the beginning of 2022, with other major companies like Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft also letting go of a large number of employees. Meta has now become the first major tech company to announce a second round of layoffs.
Since January 2022, the tech industry has laid off more than 280,000 workers, according to a website that tracks layoffs. Out of this, close to 40 per cent happened in the past 3 months alone.
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