On Wednesday, Meta will lay off around 6,000 staff. In addition, Meta is reorganizing its “Year of Efficiency” to cut costs and streamline operations.
Employees expected layoffs. Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated in a March blog post that he would lay off 10,000 workers in late April and May, even though Meta had laid off 11,000 in November. This week’s layoffs targeted business functions, whereas April’s affected tech teams. Meta halted hiring for 5,000 positions. Since November, Meta has lost 21,000 positions, cutting its global staff by 25%.
“Since we reduced our workforce last year, one surprising result is that many things have gone faster,” Zuckerberg wrote in his March blog post. “I underestimated lower priority project indirect costs.”
Meta morale is unsurprisingly low after thousands of employees left. For months, employees have been waiting to find out if they’ll be laid off, which may mean losing healthcare or a work visa.
Meta’s metaverse department, Reality Labs, spent $13.7 billion last year. Despite investor skepticism, Zuckerberg has doubled down on his belief that VR and mixed reality will fuel the next social frontier.
“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say up front that that’s not accurate,” Zuckerberg said in a quarterly earnings call last month. “We’ll keep focusing on AI and the metaverse.”
Meta’s AR/VR research incorporates AI. AI powers content filtering, algorithmic social feeds, and other Meta features. The corporation is integrating AI into its core operations as Silicon Valley’s buzzword.
Meta launched its generative AI coding tool and AI Sandbox for advertisers last month. In addition, Meta is developing a supercomputer and bespoke chips for large-scale AI research. This approach may help Meta compete with Microsoft and Google’s supercomputers.
If Meta follows its plans, this should be its last mass layoff. Hopefully, that holds for the company’s remaining workers.