Facebook, Instagram parent company Meta to cut another 10,000 workers; unclear if any in Austin

Another 10,000 employees of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will be laid off, after the tech giant announced further cuts on Tuesday.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a message to employees said he “made the difficult decision" to make the cuts, adding that recruiting employees were expected to be impacted by the layoffs this week.

“We expect to announce restructurings and layoffs in our tech groups in late April, and then our business groups in late May,” Zuckerberg said, noting that, for some employees, “it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes.”

The company will also close an additional 5,000 open roles, Zuckerberg said.

It was not immediately clear if Austin's Meta employees would be affected by the layoffs.

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The news comes after Meta last year announced that it would lay off more than 11,000 employees, or about 13% of its workforce. Last month, Meta posted declining profits and its third quarter of decreased revenue.

“This will be tough and there’s no way around that. It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success,” Zuckerberg said Tuesday, adding that Meta will “support people in the same ways we have before and treat everyone with the gratitude they deserve.”

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Last year, Meta did not say how many Austin-area employees were impacted. But in November, a WARN letter— short for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — a federally mandated notice an employer must provide to state governments in the event of major layoffs, later showed that the company had laid off a total of 222 workers at four Austin facilities. While titles of the affected positions were redacted on the notice, it did indicate a range of positions and departments were affected.

The company last month said a downturn in online advertising and competition from other social media platforms have both had impacts. Meta has also spent billions of dollars to focus on the metaverse, an online virtual world that incorporates elements of augmented reality, virtual reality, avatars and other communication.

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The move comes as other tech companies across the sector have also laid off thousands of employees in recent months. Google in January announced that it would cut about 12,000 jobs, and SiriusXM radio is cutting about 8% of its workforce.

Approximately 483 tech companies have laid off 128,202 employees in 2023, according to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, a site that has tracked tech layoffs since March 2020.

While the numbers have not been immediately clear, Austin has not escaped the trend. A number of companies with large Austin workforces, including Google, Austin-based Tesla and Round Rock-based Dell Technologies have reduced workforces since last summer. While most companies have declined to share local numbers, tech industry experts say Central Texas is certain to have been impacted by the larger wave of layoffs.

Meta's layoff rounds also follow the company saying it no longer planned to occupy office space in a new downtown Austin tower as previously planned, and would instead sublease the 589,000-square-foot space in a tower called Sixth and Guadalupe.

Meta stock (META)

Meta shares rose 6% in early trading on Tuesday.

How many employees does Meta have?

As of September 2022, Meta had about 87,000 employees, according to multiple reports. That was before the company announced more than 11,000 job cuts in November and its upcoming layoffs.

Meta has grown swiftly in recent years in Austin, and prior to layoffs had more than 2,000 employees in Austin across a number of Facebook departments and offices.

Contributing: Brett Molina, Mike Snider, Elisabeth Buchwald, USA TODAY; Associated Press; Kara Carlson, Austin American-Statesman

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Meta layoffs: Employees cut by Facebook, Instagram parent; stock rises