Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, yesterday sacked about 11,000 employees, an equivalent of 13 per cent of its global workforce, including Nigerian employees in diaspora and in Africa.
The gale of sack comes a few days after micro-blogging platform, Twitter, sacked about 50 per cent of its workforce.
The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, said the company was taking a number of additional steps to become leaner and more efficient by cutting discretionary spending and extending hiring freeze through Q1.
Efforts to get the number of local workers of the company affected by the sack proved futile as sources declined commenting on the issue. “The message sent out by the company is clear enough,” the source said.
Zuckerberg sent an email to employees and also posted on its website details of compensation packages to employees.
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history. I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13per cent and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go.
“We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted,” Zuckerberg said.
The American tech company gave a brief breakdown of the severance package for the affected workers which include payment of 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap.
“PTO-We’ll pay for all remaining PTO time; RSU vesting- Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting; Health insurance- We’ll cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months; Career Services-We’ll provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads,” Meta said.
About those on Immigration visas, Meta said it can’t do much about that as those affected might have to leave the country when their visa expires. “However, they will give you a specialist who can support you through the process’’.
“Immigration support- I know this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa. There’s a notice period before termination and some visa grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make plans and work through their immigration status. We have dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based on what you and your family need,” Meta said.
According to Meta, the international workers will also get a similar compensation to those in the US in accordance with local laws.
“Outside the US, support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws.”
Explaining the circumstances that culminated in the job cut, Zuckerberg said: “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. 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.
“In this new environment, we need to become more capital efficient. We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high-priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.”
While noting that the layoffs came as a last resort, Zuckerberg said the company has also decided to rein in other sources of the cost before letting teammates go. Overall, he said this will add up to a meaningful cultural shift in how the company operates.