Meta, the parent company of social media networks Facebook and Instagram, announced Tuesday that it will eliminate 10,000 active employees, and leave 5,000 openings unfilled.
The company said it will announce layoffs among its tech group in late April, with layoff announcements to its business group going out in late May.
The latest round of layoffs will further reduce Meta’s workforce by 13%, the company said.
“This will be tough and there’s no way around that. It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success,” said company founder Mark Zuckerberg. “They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts. We will support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.”
This is the second round of layoffs the company has made in the last six months. In November, Meta announced 11,000 layoffs, resulting in a 13% reduction in its workforce. Facebook’s announcement followed a similar round of layoffs at Twitter.
Why has the tech industry had massive layoffs?
Since the first of this year, over 100,000 employees have been laid off in the tech industry, according to a tech layoffs tracking site.
The November announcement came after Meta’s stock price droppedby over 75% from September 2021 to November 2022.
Zuckerberg did not rule out additional layoffs in a letter to employees.
“At this point, I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years,” he wrote. “Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation. Given this outlook, we’ll need to operate more efficiently than our previous headcount reduction to ensure success.”
In its end-of-year filing, Meta said that its 2022 fourth quarter netted a 4% drop in revenue compared to Quarter 4 of 2021.
