It is speculated that if the financial report in the fourth quarter of 2022 is not satisfactory and the stock price continues to fall, Meta may conduct a second and third wave of layoffs.
On November 9th, California time, at 5:36 a.m., there was an additional layoff letter from Meta in Ada’s mailbox. She was surprised that she was conscientious and hardworking, and the layoff was beyond her expectations. Before she could feel melancholy, she had to change diapers for her 13-month-old daughter.
On November 9, Zuckerberg officially announced the layoffs at Meta. Meta plans to lay off more than 11,000 people, accounting for about 13% of Meta’s total workforce. This is also the first time that Meta has voluntarily announced major layoffs. Compared with Twitter, which announced layoffs not long ago, Meta’s layoffs are more severe.
Zuckerberg publicly admitted his miscalculation: “Not only has e-commerce returned to its previous trend, but with the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and loss of advertising, Meta’s revenue was much lower than expected.”
To this end, Zuckerberg apologized to the laid-off employees: “I was wrong, and I am responsible for this. This is the most difficult decision the company has made in 18 years, which has led to this sad moment.”
As compensation, Meta will pay 16 weeks of base salary as severance pay for laid-off employees, plus an additional two weeks for each year of service, and all remaining paid time off, as well as 6 months for employees and their families medical insurance.
Regarding Zuckerberg’s sincere introspection, some laid-off employees told “Chinese Entrepreneur” that they were “very official” and “really unable to empathize with Zuckerberg.”
As soon as the news of the mass layoffs came out, Meta’s stock price rose instead, with Dow Jones market data showing that Meta’s stock price rose nearly 8%.
Judging from the three quarterly report data disclosed by Meta, Meta’s total revenue has declined year-on-year for two consecutive quarters, and its net profit has been nearly halved. In the third quarter, the revenue of Reality Labs, Meta’s main metaverse division, was only $285 million, down 49% from $558 million in the same period last year. Meanwhile, Meta’s shares have fallen more than 70% this year.
Meta’s stock price trend chart in the past year.Source: Google
In his layoff letter, Zuckerberg said the company would make Meta “a leaner, more efficient company” by cutting discretionary spending and extending a hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023.
It is speculated that if Meta’s fourth quarter 2022 earnings report is not satisfactory and the stock price continues to fall, Meta may conduct a second and third wave of layoffs.
Meta’s massive layoffs are just the tip of the iceberg. When the global economy is in recession, inflation is rising, and massive layoffs are sweeping Silicon Valley. According to foreign media reports, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Snap, etc., have successively reported the news of freezing recruitment, layoffs and restructuring.
“Chinese Entrepreneur” has connected two Meta employees who have been laid off. The Silicon Valley factory employees represented by them are experiencing unexpected career challenges. We try to restore the real operation status of the big factories in Silicon Valley from their perspective, as well as the individual feelings behind the large layoffs.
The following is an oral compilation of the two laid-off employees:
Post-80s Bao Mom: After receiving more than 400,000 yuan in compensation, the breakup fee will be less
Thinking back to that layoff letter a few days ago, I still can’t accept it.
After graduating from a college in China, I chose to go to the United States to get married and have children. Because I admire cutting-edge technology products and Meta’s good benefits, I chose to join Meta at the end of 2019. There was no epidemic at that time, and Meta was still called Facebook.
As of the last day of my resignation, I have been working at Meta for 2 years and 11 months.
At five o’clock in the morning, Ada received a layoff letter from Meta.Source: Respondents
In fact, around September this year, because Meta’s stock price has been volatile, employees have been very panic. Since stocks are such an important part of pay, Meta employees’ salaries have shrunk as share prices plummeted. A small number of employees choose to find another job after receiving part of the bonus.
After all, the salary here in Meta is not proportional to the high cost of living. The local tax rate is as high as 35%, and the salary after tax is not impressive, which is far lower than the rumored “astronomical” figure.
Meta pays salary once every two weeks, so the compensation says that it is paid according to 16 weeks of salary, and can receive 8 times of salary. The total compensation is more than 400,000 yuan, and 6 months of medical insurance are attached. But what puzzles me is that the amount of compensation marked does not seem to be in line with what I have calculated. In response to this problem, I sent an inquiry email to Meta, but have not received a reply so far.
At the beginning of this year, I went through a very absurd thing. My colleague at the same level was promoted inexplicably. His consistent style in private is that he does not understand personal planning, does not follow rules and regulations, and especially does not respect women, which makes it difficult for me to accept the fact that he is my leader. At the time, I thought Meta had a huge problem with the promotion system.
When I first joined, this business unit was 1 manager plus 10 regular employees, and just this year, the number has risen to 30 people, that is, more than 20 regular employees with 5 junior managers, 2 senior managers and 1 executive officer. In the past two years, Meta has promoted many managers for no reason. Managers at each level have been blindly expanding the number of employees in order to get promoted.
In the past two years, it seems that we have inaccurately judged the company’s prospects and economic development expectations. The earnings report fell short of expectations, the stock price fell, and the number of Meta employees rose from about 47,000 to more than 87,000 before the layoffs… This can reveal a lot of problems in the company.
I have to admit, Zuckerberg is a very talented person. As a CEO, seeing that the company’s quarterly financial reports are not as good as one, it is inevitable that he only cares about saving expenses and ignores the most basic management. For example, Reality Labs, which involves the Metaverse, is a very new department. It needs ideas and money to make products well.
However, many of Meta’s leaders are from Amazon, who advocate “making the cheapest product”, while some engineers are from Apple, who advocate the perfect product design, function, and test measurement. When these two concepts collide, conflicts will arise and the work of some departments will be greatly challenged.
As for Zuckerberg’s apology in this layoff letter, I think it’s official. Because behind the layoffs, more than 10,000 laid-off employees face the risk of not being able to find work, and the resulting family finances are in a quagmire. Will Zuckerberg take over? Do not.
For example, as a not-so-young mother, I yearn for technology companies. I don’t live in Silicon Valley, but in a state in the western United States 9 hours away from Silicon Valley – a state with very few tech companies. At that time, I applied to Meta for telecommuting for a while before I had the energy to take care of the children.
I remember that in 2020, Zuckerberg said that he hopes to achieve a goal in the next ten years, that is, 50% of people can achieve remote work, which is also in line with the future plan of the Metaverse. But the paradox is that this year, many people who applied for telecommuting have their applications rejected.
Meta has laid off more than 10,000 employees this time. I think the decision was made from the perspective of maintaining the company’s image, stock price, and investor interests. Usually the first wave of layoffs is aimed at restoring stock prices and saving expenses, and the compensation for the first batch of laid-off employees is decent. If there is a second and third wave of layoffs after that, I estimate that the “breakup fee” will be less.
In addition, some of the colleagues who were laid off this time have H1B1 visas. If they cannot find a new job within a certain period of time to apply for a new visa, they will be deported. And some female employees are still on maternity leave, but they have to accept the reality of being laid off.
After Meta’s layoffs, the stock price went up and I couldn’t help laughing. In the past few days after being laid off, I was interviewing like crazy. Because I know that the longer I delay, the less I can find a job, possibly within half a year.
After 1995, who just got a PhD degree: After half a year of employment, they survived and did not survive
I am a post-95 who just finished a PhD (generally referred to as an academic research doctorate) in the United States. In November last year, I signed an offer from Meta with excitement, and I officially joined in May this year. Because I was so interested in the Metaverse, I joked with my friends at the time that I would work hard after I entered and would bring down the company.
It was after 5:00 am when I received the layoff letter. I was still in bed, and I never fell asleep after that. I swiped my phone frantically to suppress my inner despair. Fortunately, our department is different from other departments. We belong to the category of “posts being laid off”, which means that there may be opportunities to transfer jobs internally, but I am still waiting for the notification whether the transfer can be made.
So, compared to the other laid-off employees, I was lucky. The most important thing is that the atmosphere in my department is very good. First, I can get in touch with the AI field that I didn’t get into during my PhD period. Second, a sister in the department has great passion for scientific research, work and life, which can make up for my work. Buddhist side. I found joy in this organization that is full of learning atmosphere, mutual help, and can’t lie down.
But how can Meta accept the existence of a carefree organization? So this time, our organization was unfortunately laid off. At that time, I felt like I lost a home.
From the perspective of the company, I look at the business department I am in. In fact, work performance can be described as “illusory”. Strategic planning is a measure of whether it can bring benefits to the company in the next three to five years. But now, Meta is obviously short of money and needs to return to reality, and employees who can’t generate revenue have to say goodbye.
This time, I received more than 200,000 yuan in compensation before tax. It is worth mentioning that before this, Meta had hardly announced the news of layoffs, and more employees chose to leave because they predicted that the company’s performance was at risk.
While the “breakup package” from Meta was nice, in stark contrast to the layoffs at Twitter next door, I just couldn’t empathize with Zuckerberg. However, this routine of layoff apology has been imitated and learned by many companies in Silicon Valley. I don’t know which CEO will perform it next time.
Although I have only been in Meta for more than half a year, I have observed that the company does not have a standard process for personnel promotion, and it is difficult to understand why a department has to set up more than a dozen managers and build a lot of repetitive business teams. Similar work, what’s the point?
As a metaverse fan, I don’t know why Meta’s VR headset, the Quest Pro, is so expensive at $1,500. The Metaverse is indeed the direction that Zuckerberg is betting on with all his strength, and it may be because he was not able to get caught up in TikTok, so he needs to fight another track.
Interestingly, we all use Meta food to judge the changes in the economy in private. During the half year I was in office, the food level was visibly declining.
As a post-95s generation, I’m actually not interested in some social products of Meta. I don’t use products like Instagram Reels frequently, and it’s also because my circle of friends is in China. Instead, I’m more interested in the underlying technology.
According to my friends, the atmosphere inside Meta is very depressing. Whether I can transfer jobs within Meta in the future is unknown. However, the current economic situation is not good, I think everyone should be prepared, continue to brush the questions, and maintain their interview skills. Fortunately, I am still young and life is not so stressful. The layoffs are undoubtedly a blizzard for those who need to support their families.
As for whether to go back to China, I was apprehensive—I saw on various platforms that Qingbei would be fired, and I didn’t have the confidence to go back to find a job. The PhD seemed useless.
Anxiety about work is not the biggest headache. The key is that I haven’t returned to China for three years, and I feel homesick.
For the company, layoffs are just a number, making me feel that personal struggles are not worth mentioning. If employees are laid off in the second and third waves, there are fewer opportunities to find new jobs.
After being laid off, I was also very bitter. I was going to change my resume and interview again, but my friend gave me feedback that my resume was too bad, so I had to go back and change it again – this made me want to show it badly. Submitting resumes and continuing interviews are such labor-intensive things, it is not unreasonable to continue to work at Meta.
The author of this article: Wang Xin, source: China Entrepreneur Magazine, original title: “Experience the Meta 10,000 layoffs: Some people received more than 400,000 in compensation, some said they couldn’t empathize with Xiao Zha”
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