This was stated in the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in a letter to his employees published Wednesday.

“I have decided to downsize our team by approximately 13% and lay off more than 11,000 of our talented employees. “We’re also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by reducing discretionary spending and extending the hiring freeze through the first quarter.”

Zuckerberg promised the dismissed employees compensation in the amount of 3.5 months (16 weeks) and one week’s salary for each working year at the company.

In the letter, the company’s CEO stated that against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, he exaggerated the growth in demand for online technologies and increased investment. He also talked about the recession in the economy and shrinking advertising budgets. He stressed that he took responsibility for this decision and the company’s mistakes.

As of the end of September, Meta had more than 87,000 employees.

As reported by Ukrinform, massive staff reductions have occurred previously at Twitter, Microsoft, Salesforce and other tech giants. Share prices of these companies have also fallen sharply – for example, Meta shares have fallen 70% this year.