Meta began the final round of a three-part series of layoffs on Wednesday. This is part of the company’s plan to remove 10,000 jobs revealed in March.
After laying off over 11,000 employees in March, Meta became the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of huge layoffs.
Following a hiring drive that doubled the company’s employees since 2020, the cuts reduced the company’s headcount to around mid-2021.
On Wednesday, some employees took to social media platforms such as LinkedIn to disclose that they had been laid off in a wave that was expected to affect heavily the ad sales, marketing, and partnerships teams.
In March, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the majority of the layoffs in the company’s second wave will take place in three “moments” across several months, with the most of them wrapping up in May. He suggested that several minor rounds could continue after that.
Overall, the cuts disproportionately affect non-engineering roles, underscoring the importance of individuals who develop code at Meta. In March, Zuckerberg promised to “substantially” restructure business teams and return to a “more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.”
According to executives appearing at a business town hall later, the corporation eliminated non-engineering roles like user experience research the most severely among layoffs intended primarily at technical teams.
Approximately 4,000 people were laid go in April, according to Zuckerberg during the town hall, following a lesser cut to recruiting teams in March.
The layoffs at Meta came after months of slowing revenue growth due to high inflation and a digital ad withdrawal from the pandemic e-commerce boom.