Facebook owner Meta plans to lay off around 10,000 employees and close about 5,000 additional open roles in its second major round of job cuts in the past six months as it seeks to winnow expenses and improve efficiency. 

The company is aiming to make its organization flatter by removing multiple layers of management, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement Tuesday. The world’s largest social-networking company in November laid off 11,000 people, or 13% of its staff. Bloomberg previously reported that cuts were coming earlier.

Meta employees had been bracing for more layoffs in recent weeks. Zuckerberg has been outspoken about the need to better prioritize projects and investments, calling 2023 the “year of efficiency” on a recent earnings call and hinting at additional job cuts. Earlier this year, Meta started an internal restructuring process known as a “flattening,” eliminating some middle managers and asking others to return to individual contributor roles instead of overseeing other employees.

The company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has seen a slowdown in advertising revenue, leading to its first-ever annual sales decline in 2022. Zuckerberg has shifted Meta’s focus and investment in the past year to virtual reality technology and the so-called metaverse, which he envisions as the next major computing platform.

Meta’s employee ranks expanded dramatically during the Covid-19 pandemic as demand for the company’s digital services increased and Zuckerberg leaned into the moment. The social media giant’s headcount grew 30% in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and then 23% in 2021. By the time Meta starting eliminating jobs last November, the company had more than 87,000 employees.

—Bloomberg News