By Zuko Komisa
Facebook parent Meta intends to lay off 11,000 employees.
The most significant employment layoffs in the history of the digital giant have been announced by Facebook’s parent company Meta on Wednesday: they announced that about 11,000 people will be laid off.
The layoffs occur as Meta faces numerous threats to its main business and places a risky and expensive wager on shifting to the metaverse.
It also happens to coincide with a wave of recent layoffs at other tech companies as the booming industry responds to high inflation, rising interest rates, and concerns about an impending recession.
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According to reports, the corporation is providing six months of healthcare assistance and severance pay to US employees starting at 16 weeks.
Investors rejected Zuckerberg’s costly foray towards building an immersive AI metaverse, and as digital advertising – the company’s major source of income – stalled, Meta has faltered.
In the note published on Wednesday, Zuckerberg claimed that Meta had made excessive investments in Covid at the outset, betting that the rise in online activity would persist and pick up speed long after the coronavirus outbreak was gone.
“Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,” he said.
“Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.” said Zuckerberg.
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