Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta on Wednesday announced that around 13 percent of its workforce—over 11,000 staff—will be laid off. In a message to employees announcing the cuts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he’d misjudged how long COVID’s boost to e-commerce would last and said increased competition coupled with a wider economic downturn have caused the company’s revenues to fall “much lower” than he’d expected.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” he added in the statement. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” The massive layoffs follow a painful tech industry trend, with Meta’s firings coming a week after Elon Musk cut Twitter’s 7,500-strong payroll in half. Read more.
This will not hurt Facebook in any noticeable way in the near future.
There will, however, be a large number of new tech companies starting as so many people seek new sources of income.
It will likely take more than five years to see the true impact of the downsizing of these tech companies.
Zuckerberg said… a wider economic downturn… caused the company’s revenues to fall “much lower” than he’d expected. “The macroeconomic downturn,” he said…, “caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected.”… An economic slowdown… contributed to Meta’s woes as well.
When asked whether he would allow Facebook users to fault Biden’s lousy economy for Facebook’s problems, Zuckerberg told reporters, “No, I won’t allow that. And if you dare post that kind of truthful misinformation, we’ll censor it prompty.”
Zuckerberg added: “I’m not messing around with the Democrats in Congress. They’ll never permit Facebook, or anyone in the media, to post that kind of crystal clear, trustworthy and honest misinformation.”
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