The 13% reduction in the staff at Meta Platforms was not a surprise as tech giants have forecasted lower revenue growth as advertising dollars shrink.
The CEO of Meta Platforms (META), Mark Zuckerberg, made the decision to lay off 11,000 of the company's 87,000 employees, but is offering over three months of severance pay and six months of health insurance coverage for those affected.
"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," he said in a blog post.
"I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted," Zuckerberg added.
The founder of Facebook told employees that they would receive an email providing details of their layoff and would have the chance to speak with an executive.
"There is no good way to do a layoff, but we hope to get all the relevant information to you as quickly as possible and then do whatever we can to support you through this," he wrote. "Everyone will get an email soon letting you know what this layoff means for you. After that, every affected employee will have the opportunity to speak with someone to get their questions answered and join information sessions."
Severance Package Details
Zuckerberg laid out the generous severance package offered to employees in a blog post.
Employees in the U.S. will receive 16 weeks of their salary, plus two additional weeks for every year of service without instituting a limit.
The company will pay all paid time off (PTO) and everyone who is part of the restricted stock units (RSU) program will receive their November 15 vesting.
Meta will continue to pay health insurance coverage for six months for both employees and their dependents, plus provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including "early access to unpublished job leads," the company said.
Since Meta is known for hiring employees who are working in the U.S. because of a company-sponsored visa, the tech behemoth is providing immigration specialists to provide guidance.
"I know this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa," Zuckerberg said. "There’s a notice period before termination and some visa grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make plans and work through their immigration status."
While the majority of employees lost access to the company's systems due to the amount of sensitive information, Zuckerberg is being more magnanimous compared to other massive tech giant layoffs and will give the staff access to their email "throughout the day so everyone can say farewell," he said.
Meta Platforms will provide similar benefits to its employees outside of the U.S.
"Outside the U.S., support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg Apologizes
Zuckerberg also apologized to his employees on the layoffs, emphasizing that the macroeconomic environment had become challenging.
"The macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that," he said.
Meta Hiring Freeze
The company's hiring freeze will continue through the first quarter of 2023 with a few exceptions as Meta's growth and efficiency will determine its outlook.
"I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point," Zuckerberg said. "This will give us the ability to control our cost structure in the event of a continued economic downturn. It will also put us on a path to achieve a more efficient cost structure than we outlined to investors recently."
Meta is not the only major tech company to announce layoffs this season. Twitter's (TWTR) new owner, Elon Musk, kicked off his takeover of the social media network by firing employees abruptly, cutting off access to their laptops, email, and Slack accounts. Musk has said he aims to cut 50% of the company's workforce.
