San Francisco: Facebook owner Meta started to lay off the last batch of employees Wednesday as a three-part round of cutting the jobs under the plan announced in March about ending 10,000 job roles.
Meta became the first tech behemoth to lay off its employees earlier this year after firing more than 11,000 workers last year.
The total number of employees is not at par with those in mid-2021 after the fast hiring by the California-based company since 2020.
On LinkedIn, a number of Meta workers performing their duties under marketing, recruiting, engineering and corporate communications said Wednesday that they were laid off. The stocks of Meta increased 0.5% in a broadly weaker market. They have more than doubled in value this year and are among the top performers in the S&P 500 index thanks to the cost-cutting drive and Meta’s focus on artificial intelligence (AI).
In March, CEO Meta Mark Zuckerberg said the “bulk of the layoffs in the company’s second round would take place in three moments over several months, largely finishing in May. Some smaller rounds could continue after that.”
The layoff drive targeted non-engineering employees most heavily, reinforcing the control and upper hand of those who write the code at the tech giant.
Zuckerberg pledged in March to restructure business teams “substantially” and return to a “more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.”
Even among cuts aimed specifically at technology teams, the company eliminated non-engineering roles like content design and user experience research most severely, according to executives speaking at a company town hall afterwards.
CEO Meta said during the town hall: “About 4,000 employees lost their jobs in the April layoffs,” following a smaller hit to recruiting teams in March. –Agencies
