Meta Platforms (META) announced it would be entering into a period of layoffs on March 14, 2023.
Mark Zuckerberg, the company's CEO, said at the time that he expected to reduce Meta's workforce by 10,000 employees and to close around 5,000 open roles that hadn't yet been filled.
DON'T MISS: How Much Mark Zuckerberg Really Made While Recording a $1 Salary in 2022
By April 17, workers across the engineering, graphics programming and marketing departments started announcing that they had been laid off on LinkedIn.
Details from questions posed on an internal company forum, ahead of a forthcoming employee town hall, were reported by Reuters on April 19.
"You've shattered the morale and confidence in leadership of many high performers who work with intensity. Why should we stay at Meta?" asked one employee, Reuters reported.
"This will be tough and there’s no way around that," Zuckerberg had written in the March 14 communication with workers. "It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success."
"They’ve dedicated themselves to our mission and I’m personally grateful for all their efforts," Zuckerberg continued. "We will support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve."
Following are other direct quotes from Zuckerberg's March 14 note:
"As I’ve talked about efficiency this year, I’ve said that part of our work will involve removing jobs -- and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long term vision."
"In our Year of Efficiency, we will make our organization flatter by removing multiple layers of management. As part of this, we will ask many managers to become individual contributors. We’ll also have individual contributors report into almost every level -- not just the bottom -- so information flow between people doing the work and management will be faster."
"A leaner org will execute its highest priorities faster. People will be more productive, and their work will be more fun and fulfilling. We will become an even greater magnet for the most talented people. That’s why in our Year of Efficiency, we are focused on canceling projects that are duplicative or lower priority and making every organization as lean as possible."
"As part of the Year of Efficiency, we’re focusing on returning to a more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles. It’s important for all groups to get leaner and more efficient to enable our technology groups to get as lean and efficient as possible. We will make sure we continue to meet all our critical and legal obligations as we find ways to operate more efficiently."
"In terms of how we should operate during this period, I encourage each of you to focus on what you can control. That is, do great work and support your teammates. Our community is extremely resilient. Change is never easy, but I know we’ll get through this and come out an even stronger company that can build better products faster and enable you to do the best work of your careers."
Get exclusive access to portfolio managers and their proven investing strategies with Real Money Pro. Get started now.
