In a letter to employees on Nov. 9, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would be laying off 11,000 people or about 13% of its workforce. In the same statement, he also announced that the company would be making cuts to discretionary spending and continuing its hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023. 

In his statement Zuckberg says, “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”

One thing Zuckerberg owns up to is predicting that the surge in e-commerce caused by the pandemic would be permanent and increasing investments. This surge did not end up being permanent.

“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,” said Zuckerberg.

Going forward, the company will be focusing on “high priority growth areas” such as its ads and business platforms, AI discovery engine, and the metaverse. Since last year, Meta has put in and lost almost $20 billion in the metaverse. 

Those laid off will receive 16 weeks of severance pay plus two additional weeks for every year worked. They will also get paid for their remaining PTO time, get their November vesting, and healthcare for them and their families for six months. Career services will be available for three months and immigration support will be given to those on a visa. 

Meta’s stock has begun to recover from the sharp drop it experienced at the end of October. The stock went from $137.51 per share on Oct. 25 to $97.94 just two days later. It currently sits at $109.17 per share. 

Meta is one of 30 tech companies to lay off workers this month. Others include Lyft, Booking.com, and most notably Twitter, which was bought by Elon Musk two weeks ago. He laid off around half of Twitter’s workforce last week.