Couple who both worked for Meta woke up to same email laying them off
Topics: Facebook, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: Jess White/LinkedIn/dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Facebook, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg
An unlucky couple who worked for Meta were surprised to wake up to an email telling them they had both been laid off.
Last month, the Facebook and Instagram owner cut 11,000 jobs, which meant letting go of 13 percent of its workforce.
Two of those employees to lose their jobs were Jess White and her husband Anthony White from the US.
Jess took to LinkedIn to announce she was part of the mass layoffs within Meta, but didn't have a bad thing to say about them.
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In the post, she said: "This morning both Anthony White and I woke to emails that we were both part of Meta’s 13% layoff.
"I have loved my time at Meta and really respect and appreciate everyone who I have worked with/for."
According to their LinkedIn profiles, the couple actually joined Meta at similar times last year.
Jess had worked at the company as a technical sourcer in artificial intelligence since November 2021, with Anthony joining in December 2021 as a technical sourcer.
Jess only returned to Meta a matter of weeks ago after having a period of parental leave.
She said she was 'excited' to return to the company and described Meta's parental leave policy as 'progressive'.
For the 11,000 who lost their jobs, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said they would receive 16 weeks of pay as well as two weeks for each year of service.
He also said they would get help from an external company to help with the job search, which includes 'early access' to jobs that haven't been advertised yet.
Ahead of the mass layoffs, Mark Zuckerberg shared a message with Meta employees explaining the reason for his decision.
He said: "I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13 percent and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go.
"We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1."
The CEO conceded that Meta had overinvested at the start of Covid and that had come back to bite them.
He said: "At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth.
"Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended.
"Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected."
Zuckerberg continued: "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.
"I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that."