Zuckerberg Confirms Meta’s Cutting 10,000 Staff by Year’s End

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company needs to run like a well oiled machine during this ongoing “Year of Efficiency.” Making sure that machine runs as “efficiently” as possible will require employees to expect the machine will chew them up and spit them out onto the curb.

In a letter submitted to Meta employees and posted to the company blog Tuesday, Zuckerberg said the company plans to lay off around 10,000 people. In addition, the company will close 5,000 open roles that have yet to be filled. The letter does not mention which teams could be impacted the most, though he said news of layoffs for Meta’s “tech groups” will be coming in late April, while business employees should expect the boot in late May. There could be even further layoffs going into the rest of the year.

“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” Zuckerberg wrote. “It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success. They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts.”

This letter confirms previous reports that Meta was planning to announce more layoffs before Zuckerberg takes paternity leave for his third child. Last year, Meta cut 11,000 workers from its global workforce. The company’s middle managers are also reportedly being pressured to join in on more grunt work as Meta seems to think its main problem is not enough people doing enough actual work.

Zuckerberg did promise to end the company’s ongoing hiring freeze after these layoffs are finally done. The goal, he said, is to have a “leaner, more technical company” that focuses on business tools (advertising), artificial intelligence (its late to the game chatbot), and the metaverse (the still-dumb idea for everybody working and playing in a virtual world for most hours of the day). The company’s social media apps, once its bread and butter, are barely mentioned.

“The financial plan we’ve set out puts us in position to deliver it,” Zuckerberg wrote. Shame that more than 21,000 employees who were or are set to be fired won’t be there to see it through.

This article is part of a developing story.