Meta will ax thousands of employees this week in another round of layoffs.
According to a new report from Vox, the company told employees in a memo that layoffs were expected to start Wednesday and will affect around 4,000 jobs at Facebook, Instagram, Reality Labs and WhatsApp.
Workers were reportedly told they will be notified by email if their job will be affected, and North American employees were asked to work from home if it was possible so they could “process the news.”
“This will be a difficult time as we say goodbye to friends and colleagues who have contributed so much to Meta,” Meta’s Head of People Lori Goler said in the memo.
The layoffs are part of what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls the year of efficiency. The firings also come after Meta cut 11,000 employees in November with promises of cutting 10,000 more in the coming months.
Meta’s layoffs are part of a trend in the tech industry that snowballed after Elon Musk’s unprecedented firing of nearly 80% of Twitter’s staff when he took over the company in October. Since then, rising interest rates and a possible recession led tech companies to tighten their belts.
The Meta firings could signal the end of the company’s Metaverse crusade as well, at least for the time being. Reality Labs, the section of the company dealing with Metaverse development, has cost the company money since its creation. It is expected to receive significant cuts in this round of layoffs.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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