“Today, I share some of the most difficult changes we have made in the history of Meta”, announced the boss of the group, Mark Zuckerberg, in a message addressed to the employees. “I have decided to reduce the size of our team by approximately 13% and part ways with 11,000 of our talented employees.”
Wednesday’s announcement is the first social plan in the group’s history.
“I want to take responsibility for these decisions and how we got here. I know it’s difficult for everyone, and I’m especially sorry for those affected,” Zuckerberg added.
Meta, which had some 87,000 employees worldwide at the end of September, reported a disappointing financial performance in the third quarter with a sharp drop in sales and profits and a stagnation in its number of users.
Mr. Zuckerberg then announced that the group’s workforce could decrease by the end of 2023.
Meta does not immediately specify the geographical distribution of the job cuts.
Employees terminated in the United States will receive 16 weeks of base pay and two additional weeks of pay for each year of service. The company will cover their health insurance for 6 months.
The layoffs at Meta, which also owns the social network Instagram and the messaging service WhatsApp, are part of a broader context of massive departures in the tech sector.
Last week, two Silicon Valley companies, Stripe and Lyft, announced sweeping layoffs as Amazon froze office hiring.
Twitter, recently acquired by Elon Musk, has just laid off around half of its 7,500 employees.
On Wall Street, where Meta’s announcement was widely anticipated, the group’s share price rose by just over 4% in electronic trading prior to the opening.
