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Meta is executing its latest round of layoffs as part of its “Year of Efficiency,” cutting about 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” — a mass restructuring to save money — the company is conducting its latest round of layoffs. Those cuts impact around 6,000 people, including Perry Bashkoff, Head of Music Partnerships on Instagram.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in March that he would cut 10,000 jobs in two rounds of layoffs in late April and May — although 11,000 jobs had already been cut in November. In addition, Meta has stopped recruiting around 5,000 vacancies.
This week’s layoffs mostly affected corporate functions, while April’s layoffs mostly affected technology teams. Overall, around 21,000 people have lost their jobs at Meta, reducing the company’s workforce by about a quarter since November, when the company employed about 87,000 people.
“Yes, I was one of them,” Perry Bashkoff, head of music partnerships at Instagram before this week’s layoffs, wrote on his blog LinkedIn post. “I’m one of the lucky ones who has had an uninterrupted career of more than 25 years. I’ve spent the last five years on Instagram/Meta bringing music to the masses, building tools, breaking artists, building relationships and having the most fun I’ve ever had at ‘work’.”
While staff knew this latest round of cuts was coming, the loss of thousands of team members has understandably dampened morale at Meta. Waiting months to find out if you’ll be unemployed is stressful enough, but it can mean losing a work visa or health care for some employees.
Meta spent $13.7 billion on Reality Labs, the division behind its Metaverse developments, last year, as Zuckerberg has insisted that VR and mixed reality experiences are central to the future of social media and connectivity will be of importance. Meanwhile, investors were skeptical.
“The narrative has been forming that we’re kind of moving away from focusing on the vision of the metaverse, so I’d like to say upfront that that’s not true,” Zuckerberg said on a earnings call last month. “We have focused on AI and the metaverse and will continue to do so.”