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Zuckerberg Confirms Meta Is Cutting 10,000 Staff by Year's End

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg told employees he also plans to close another 5,000 open positions during this expanded ‘year of efficiency.’

With an image of himself on a screen in the background, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill October 23, 2019
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced another round of massive layoffs Tuesday impacting both tech and business teams.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images)

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company needs to run like a well oiled machine during this ongoing “Year of Efficiency.” Making sure that machine runs as “efficiently” as possible will require employees to expect the machine will chew them up and spit them out onto the curb.

In a letter submitted to Meta employees and posted to the company blog Tuesday, Zuckerberg said the company plans to lay off around 10,000 people. In addition, the company will close 5,000 open roles that have yet to be filled. The letter does not mention which teams could be impacted the most, though he said news of layoffs for Meta’s “tech groups” will be coming in late April, while business employees should expect the boot in late May. There could be even further layoffs going into the rest of the year.

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“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” Zuckerberg wrote. “It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success. They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts.”

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This letter confirms previous reports that Meta was planning to announce more layoffs before Zuckerberg takes paternity leave for his third child. Last year, Meta cut 11,000 workers from its global workforce. The Meta CEO talked up how great having “lean” teams across the company has been since it, obviously, costs less, but he also claimed employees are “more productive” when they have less staff.

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The company’s middle managers are also reportedly being pressured to join in on more grunt work as Meta seems to think its main problem is not enough people doing enough actual work. Zuckerberg referenced this so called “flattening” in his letter to employees.

Zuckerberg did promise to end the company’s ongoing hiring freeze after these layoffs are finally done. The goal, he said, is to have a “leaner, more technical company” that focuses on business tools (its declining advertising empire), artificial intelligence (its late to the game chatbot and “AI Personas”), and the metaverse (the still-dumb idea that everybody would be willing to live, work, and play in a virtual world for most hours of the day). The company’s social media apps, once its bread and butter, are barely mentioned.

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“The financial plan we’ve set out puts us in position to deliver it,” Zuckerberg wrote. Shame that more than 21,000 employees who were or are set to be fired won’t be there to see it through.

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