Former Meta employees are swarming to social media to share their accounts of finding out they were laid off on Wednesday after Mark Zuckerberg announced the company was axing over 11,000 employees.
Zuckerberg issued a statement Wednesday saying that 13% of its workforce would be fired. The Meta CEO said he "got this wrong" and apologized to staff for over-investing in the company, calling the layoffs a "last resort." The employees were notified of the layoffs over email on Wednesday morning.
Much of Meta's recruiting team was impacted by the layoffs, as Zuckerberg said the company plans to freeze hiring.
One former Meta recruiter, Brianna Sgro, took to LinkedIn to announce she was fired and wrote: "I'm sad, hurt, uncertain, disappointed, and now jobless."
"When I joined a year ago I had full faith and excitement to work at a company I dreamed of working at my whole life. I used to think about on my commute to work 'Wow, what if I ever got the chance to work at Facebook or Google!' It felt like a dream that was unreachable," Sgro said on LinkedIn. "Although all of these things come to an end today, I am so thankful to experience them."
Many employees expressed their gratitude for being able to work at a company like Meta even as they faced broad layoffs. For some young employees it was the first broad layoff they had seen in their career.
"Writing this is hard," former Meta tech recruiter Cai Mailhes wrote on LinkedIn. "Today, I was laid off from Meta. I could have never imagined my time at the workplace I felt safe at and finally at home come to an end like this. After a promotion and making moves to grow my career internally, I never thought of leaving. My coworkers were absolutely the brightest and best talent out there."
Despite the optimism from many laid-off staff, not all responses from ex-employees were positive. A couple who worked at Meta as technical recruiters posted on LinkedIn to say they had been sacked, despite only returning from parental leave a few months ago.
Another former employee tweeted they have only a "short period of time" to find another job as a result of their immigration status, while a former employee based in Seattle said the office there was "unusually packed" and that it was a "really somber moment."
Meta has cut staff from the US, UK, Ireland and Ghana, the posts show. The group of people laid off included some product designers, recruiters, engineers, as well as some who worked in marketing, Meta's Reality Labs and Quest division.
Below is a selection of LinkedIn posts and tweets from employees who were laid off from Meta:
—Carlos Giffoni (@carlosgiffoni) November 9, 2022
