Non-technical functions worst affected Roles being cut include marketing, content strategy Ireland HQ team down nearly 20%
NEW YORK, May 24 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc (META.O), owner of Facebook, on Wednesday cut jobs across its business and operations units as it implemented the latest series of a three-part round of layoffs, part of a plan announced in March to scrap 10,000 rolls.
Dozens of employees working in teams such as marketing, site security, enterprise engineering, program management, content strategy and corporate communications announced on LinkedIn that they had been laid off.
The social media giant also fired employees from its units that focus on privacy and integrity, according to LinkedIn posts.
Earlier this year, Meta became the first big tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs after laying off more than 11,000 employees in the fall. The cuts returned the company’s workforce to where it stood from about mid-2021, following a wave of hiring that doubled its workforce since 2020.
Shares of the company closed slightly higher in a generally weaker market. They’ve more than doubled in value this year and are among the top performers in the S&P 500 Index (.SPX), 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 come in three “moments” over several months, largely ending in May. Some smaller rounds could continue after that, he said.
Overall, the cuts have hit non-technical functions the hardest, cementing the primacy of those who write the code at Meta. Zuckerberg has committed to “substantially” restructure company teams and return to a “more optimal relationship between engineers and other roles”.
Morning traffic flows past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, US, November 9, 2022. REUTERS/Peter DaSilva
Even among the cuts aimed specifically at technology teams, the company has most strongly eliminated non-technical roles such as content design and user experience research, according to executives speaking at a company town hall after the latest round of layoffs in April.
About 4,000 workers lost their jobs in April, Zuckerberg said at town hall, following a smaller hit with recruiting teams in March.
The social media firm said on Wednesday that the latest cuts are likely to affect around 490 employees at its international headquarters in Dublin, or nearly 20% of its Irish workforce.
Two top executives in key market India – marketing director Avinash Pant and Saket Jha Saurabh, director and head of media partnerships – were also 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 declining revenue growth amid high inflation and a digital advertising withdrawal from the pandemic e-commerce boom.
The company has also poured billions of dollars into its metaverse-oriented Reality Labs unit, which lost $13.7 billion by 2022, and a project to shape its infrastructure to support artificial intelligence.
Reporting by Katie Paul in New York; Edited by Kenneth Li and Mark Porter
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