Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, told hundreds of executives on Tuesday that the company will start laying off employees on Wednesday morning local time. It was previously reported that Meta would launch the company’s first-ever mass layoffs, with thousands of people set to lose their jobs in what is likely to be the largest layoff in the tech industry so far this year.
▲ Zuckerberg
The people familiar with the matter said Zuckerberg looked downbeat at Tuesday’s meeting. He said he was responsible for the company’s mistakes and that his over-optimism about its growth had led to overstaffing.
At the meeting, Zuckerberg described the widespread layoffs, specifically mentioning that recruiting and business teams were among those being cut, and that Meta was expected to make a general internal announcement of the layoffs around 6 a.m. ET Wednesday (19:00 GMT Thursday), with those to be notified in the morning.
Lori Goler, head of human resources at Meta, told executives that employees who lose their jobs will receive at least four months of salary as severance pay. According to U.S. media reports, Meta’s median annual salary for 2021 is about $290,000 (currently about RMB 2.12 million), which is among the highest for U.S. companies, equivalent to $177,000 per month or nearly $710,000 for four months.
