The widespread retrenchment in the U.S. technology industry has thrown thousands of workers in Silicon Valley out of work, a trend greatly amplified on Wednesday by Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, which announced it would eliminate 13% of its workforce, amounting to more than 11,000 jobs.
The announcement followed on the heels of major layoffs at other tech firms, most recently Twitter, which is restructuring in the aftermath of its takeover by Tesla founder Elon Musk, and also business software firm Salesforce and social media giant Snap, Inc.
Other major tech firms, including Apple, Amazon and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, have said that they will slow or curtail new hiring.
Announcing the job cuts, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted he had made an error in judgment by assuming the sharp growth in online commerce that coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic signaled a permanent change in consumer habits.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg said in a statement released Wednesday. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”
Market reacts
The move by Meta to cut costs was applauded by many investors, some of whom have been calling on the company to pay more attention to its bottom line.
Brad Gerstner, founder of Altimeter Capital and a vocal proponent of change at Meta, used Twitter to voice his approval of…
