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Meta Platforms Inc said on Wednesday it would lay off 11,000 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, as the Facebook parent battles challenges.
“The teammates who will be leaving us are talented and passionate, and have made an important impact on our company and community. Each of you have helped make Meta a success, and I’m grateful for it. I’m sure you’ll go on to do great work at other places,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive officer in a blogpost.
According to people familiar with the matter, Meta Platforms employs close to 300 to 400 people in India. When contacted about the impact of the decision on the people working at Meta in India, the company said: “We are not providing details on specific team impact.”
The layoffs were announced days after Meta Platform Inc.’s profits halved in the third quarter to $4.4 billion from $9.2 a year ago. The social media company reported its revenue at $27.7 billion slipped from $29 billion in the same period last year. Meta’s sales also shrank by 4 per cent year on year.
“At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” Zuckerberg said.
“Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he added.
In contrast to the global business, net profit of Facebook India Online Services Private Limited, the registered entity of Meta in India more than doubled in FY22 to Rs 297 crore from Rs 128 crore in the previous year. The company’s revenue too grew 56 per cent to Rs 2,323.9 crore from Rs 1,485 crore in FY21, as per the financial statement shared by research firm Toffler.
Meta will extend its hiring freeze through Q1 of 2023, with some exceptions.
“I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point,” said Zuckberg.
The lay-offs would affect every team across the company.
“I believe we are deeply underestimated as a company today. Billions of people use our services to connect, and our communities keep growing. Our core business is among the most profitable ever built with huge potential ahead,” Zuckerberg said.
The employees fired will get 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap. The company will also provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads to all those who have been laid off, Zuckerberg said.
Big tech giants including Apple, Meta, Twitter, Amazon and others have been facing the heat of the ongoing economic slowdown. According to Crunchbase, a market research company, technology US-based companies have fired over 45,000 workers of October 2022.
The people leaving the company will lose the access to most Meta systems by the end of the day, given the sensitivity of the data accessed by them. However, their email addresses will remain active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell.
Previously, Twitter, another social media giant has reduced its global workforce to half.
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