Meta conducts its latest round of layoffs as part of its ‘Year of Efficiency,’ cutting approximately 6,000 jobs, including Instagram’s Head of Music Partnerships.
As part of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta’s so-called “Year of Efficiency,” — restructuring en masse to save money — the company is waging its latest round of layoffs. These cuts impact around 6,000 people, including Instagram’s Head of Music Partnerships, Perry Bashkoff.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in March that he would cut 10,000 jobs across two rounds of layoffs at the end of April and May — despite already eliminating 11,000 jobs in November. Additionally, Meta stopped recruiting for around 5,000 open roles.
This week’s layoffs targeted primarily business roles, while April’s layoffs mainly impacted tech teams. Altogether, around 21,000 people have lost their jobs at Meta, reducing the company’s headcount by about a quarter since November, when the company had approximately 87,000 employees.
“Yes, I was one of them,” wrote Perry Bashkoff, Instagram’s Head of Music Partnerships until this week’s layoffs, on his LinkedIn post. “I’ve been one of the lucky ones who has had a 25+ year career run without pause. The past five spent at Instagram/Meta bringing music to the masses, building tools, breaking artists, building relationships, and having some of the most fun I’ve ever had doing ‘work.’”
While employees knew this latest round of cuts was coming, the loss of thousands of team members has left morale understandably low at Meta. Waiting for months to find out if you’ll be out of a job is stressful enough, but this might mean losing a work visa or healthcare for some employees.
Meta spent $13.7 billion last year on Reality Labs, the department for its metaverse developments, as Zuckerberg has insisted that VR and mixed reality experiences will be core to the future of social media and connection. Meanwhile, investors have been skeptical.
“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say up front that that’s not accurate,” said Zuckerberg in a quarterly earnings call last month. “We’ve been focusing on AI and the metaverse, and we will continue to.”