Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB), the owner of Facebook (NASDAQ:META) and Instagram, has confirmed it will cut more than 11,000 staff, equivalent to 13% of its workforce, after its founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg admitted he “got (it) wrong” and things are much worse than he expected.
The job losses follow layoffs at other big tech companies, including Twitter, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
The first round of redundancies in the company’s 18-year history comes after its workforce peaked this year at 87,314 people.
In a message to employees, Zuckerberg said that the company had over-invested at the start of Covid, banking that the increase in online activity would continue after the pandemic.
“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” he wrote.
“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.”
“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.”
He said the company would shift resources to “high priority growth areas” such as its AI discovery engine, ads and business platforms, and its metaverse project.
Meta said it would pay 16 weeks of base salary plus two additional weeks’ pay for every year of service as part of its severance packages, and all remaining paid time off.
The company plans to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter of next year.
Shares in Meta were 4% higher in pre-market trading.