In a lengthy message shared with employees on Wednesday, Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg revealed reasons why the company is sacking 11,000 staff, about 13 percent of the company’s workforce.
According to the message, Zuckerberg expresses his displeasure about the retrenchment but acknowledged it is a necessary decision considering the looming economic recession among other factors.
While taking responsibility for the mass layoff and the decisions that led to it, Zuckerberg noted that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram increased its investment and hiring process during the start of Covid 19 pandemic.
Mark stated that “the world rapidly moved online” at the start of Covid 19. He disclosed that the accelerated growth which he thought will continue after the pandemic ended with it.
Subsequently, the company experienced revenue collapse which also cut across virtually all the tech companies.
Despite the fall in revenue, Meta CEO however stated that the company will continue to invest in its virtual reality project “Metaverse”.
Investors King had earlier reported that Zuckerberg has spent billions of dollars on the Metaverse project with little or no result to show for it.
In the letter, Zuckerberg named the Metaverse project as one of the company’s “high-priority growth areas”.
“We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high-priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse” he noted.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg stated that affected staff will be notified through their email and they will have the opportunity to ask any questions.
Additionally, he disclosed that the company will be offering staff within the US precinct severance pay starting at 16 weeks as well as six months of healthcare support.
Investors King understands that Meta is probably facing its toughest year so far.
Apart from the massive fall in revenue, the company’s stock shares has lost more than $67 billion in value this year while it was also alleged of breaching privacy policy.
