Third round of layoffs: Meta's senior India executives get pink slips

Directors of marketing, media partnerships among impacted

With the third and final round of layoffs implemented by Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms, Inc. in process globally, India, too, has seen its impact, with some senior executives being asked to leave.

Some of the executives to have been impacted are Avinash Pant, India’s director of marketing; Saket Jha Sourabh, director and head of media partnerships; and Amrita Mukherjee, one of the directors on the legal team.

An email sent to the company did not elicit any comment on the development until the time of going to press. However, sources in the know said that this round of layoffs will impact managerial and director-level executives, and hence the total number could be far lesser in India than in the other rounds.

 

The layoffs at Meta are part of the ‘Year of Efficiency’ initiative started by Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to make the company more efficient. As part of this, the company expects to trim its team size by about 10,000 and close about 5,000 additional open roles that it hasn’t filled yet.

Like in other rounds, several Meta employees took to social media and networking platforms to share their situation, where many also said that performance was not the reason for layoffs.

Jodie Lynn Zdork was one such employee who got laid off.

Aiming to be ‘flatter’

• Meta announced its first round of layoffs in November last year; CEO said 13% employees to be impacted
• Meta incurred expenses of $21.42 billion in Q1FY23, up 10% YoY
• The uptrend in expenses was driven mostly by restructuring costs, which included severance pay and other benefits to separated employees
• In March, Mark Zuckerberg said ‘we will make our organisation flatter by removing multiple layers of management’

“I got caught in the layoff net at Meta today. If anyone knows of a tech-leaning content design role or a product owner role, please send it my way,” she tweeted. “Despite getting Exceeds Expectations on my performance review,” she further added.

There were some who took to LinkedIn to share their situation, such as Kushal Naidu, who was with Meta for 20 months as a trust and safety program manager. He is also on an H1B visa, which means he needs to find a job quickly or return home. 

“This is a bittersweet moment for me. I will sincerely miss collaborating with my extremely talented colleagues at Meta. At the same time, I’m excited about new beginnings for my career. I have been continuously employed for the past 13 years, and I wish I could use this opportunity to recharge. However, I am in the US on a work visa (H1B), and therefore, I need to find a job soon,” wrote Naidu in his LinkedIn post.

In a blog post in March this year, Zuckerberg said: “In our Year of Efficiency, we will make our organisation flatter by removing multiple layers of management. As part of this, we will ask many managers to become individual contributors. We’ll also have individual contributors report to almost every level — not just the bottom — so information flow between people doing the work and management will be faster.”