NEW YORK, May 24 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) carried out the latest batch of three-part layoffs on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, as part of a plan announced in March . eliminate 10,000 roles.
Meta earlier this year became the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs, after showing the door to more than 11,000 employees in the fall. The cuts brought the company’s workforce back to where it was in mid-2021, following a wave of hiring that has doubled its workforce since 2020.
Several employees working in teams including marketing, recruiting, engineering and corporate communications took to LinkedIn on Wednesday to announce they had been laid off.
Meta shares rose slightly in an overall weaker market. They have more than doubled in value this year and are among the best performers on the S&P 500 (.SPX) index, thanks to cost cutting and Meta’s focus on artificial intelligence.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in March that the bulk of the company’s second-round layoffs would take place in three “moments” over several months, largely ending in May. Some smaller rounds could continue after that, he said.
Overall, the cuts hit non-technical roles the hardest, reinforcing the primacy of those who write code at Meta. Zuckerberg pledged in March to “substantially” restructure sales teams and return to a “more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.”
Even among the cuts aimed specifically at technology teams, the company has eliminated non-technical roles most severely such as content design and user experience research, according to executives speaking afterwards at a town hall in the city. ‘business.
About 4,000 employees lost their jobs in the April layoffs, Zuckerberg said at the town hall, following a lesser hit to recruiting teams in March.
The social media company said on Wednesday the latest cuts were likely to affect around 490 staff at its international headquarters in Dublin, or almost 20% of its Irish workforce.
Two senior executives in India’s key market – marketing director Avinash Pant and Saket Jha Saurabh, director and head of media partnerships – have also been fired, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The two executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Meta’s layoffs followed months of waning revenue growth amid high inflation and a decline in digital advertising following the pandemic e-commerce boom.
The company has also invested billions of dollars in its metaverse-oriented Reality Labs unit, which lost $13.7 billion in 2022, and a project to shape up its infrastructure to support artificial intelligence work.
Reporting by Katie Paul in New York; Editing by Kenneth Li and Mark Porter
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