Facebook owner Meta fired 11,000 employees, after revenue fell

The first round of layoffs in Meta's history

In response to a disastrous revenue drop that left the company behind, Facebook overstaffed and "inefficient," Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is eliminating 11,000 jobs, or more than one in eight employees, the CEO announced in a memo to employees.

Zuckerberg claimed that the metaverse project was a "high-priority development area." At the same time, he did not explicitly state that he intended to stop supporting the company's contentious multibillion-dollar bet on virtual reality.

The company's staff reached a peak of 87,314 this year, which coincides with the first round of layoffs in its history. He apologized to the team and stated that the releases were a "last resort." I made a mistake here, and I accept responsibility for that, he said to the staff.

"I regret that this did not turn out the way I had anticipated," he remarked. "Online sales have not only resumed their previous patterns, but our revenue has been substantially lower than anticipated due to the financial slump, increasing competition, and ad signal loss. I acknowledge that I made a mistake in this."

Meta's stock decreased by 70% since it changed from Facebook

After investing billions of dollars with little to show for it in its metaverse projects, Meta has been having trouble lately. In October 2021, Meta changed its name from Facebook, and since then, its stock price has decreased by about 70%.

There is no good way to execute a layoff. Still, we hope to communicate all the pertinent information to you as promptly as possible and then do whatever we can to support you through this, Zuckerberg wrote in his memo.

Everyone will shortly get an email informing them of the implications of this layoff. Every affected employee will then have the chance to speak with someone, get their questions answered, and attend education sessions.

Contrast that with the forthright emails sent to Twitter employees under the subject line "Your Role at Twitter," which stated: "Today is your last working day at the firm."

Related: Meta intends to lay off 'thousands' of employees

In addition to six months of healthcare assistance, the business provides US employees with severance pay starting at 16 weeks, according to Zuckerberg's message. Although "specialized immigration specialists" will assist those with immigrant visas, Zuckerberg recognized that the cuts were "tough if you're here on a visa."

"Say goodbye"

However, on Wednesday, Zuckerberg informed the staff that they would continue to access their email "so everyone can say goodbye."

"Twitter's handling of its current restructure has cast a light on how redundancies in the tech sector should—and should not—be handled" 

-said Florence Brocklesby, the founder of employment law experts Bellevue Law.

According to Charlie Thomson, an employment law specialist at Stewarts, "The Twitter controversy has lowered the bar so dramatically that it will now be easy for Meta and other businesses to make their redundancy processes look clever and humanitarian."