International
Facebook owner Meta to lay off 11,000 staff
| By AFP | Juliette Michel with Joseph Boyle in Paris |
Facebook owner Meta will lay off more than 11,000 of its staff in “the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” boss Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.
He said the cuts represented 13 percent of the social media titan’s workforce and would affect its research lab focusing on the metaverse as well as its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The tech industry is in a serious slump and several major firms have announced mass layoffs — Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk fired half its staff last week.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg said in a note to staff.
“I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”
Ad-supported platforms such as Facebook and Google are suffering with advertisers looking to cut costs as they struggle with inflation and rising interest rates.
Zuckerberg told his 87,000-strong staff he had expected the boost in e-commerce and online activity during the Covid pandemic to continue, but added: “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
The measures were also a message to Wall Street, where the company’s poor performance has sent the Meta share price plummeting by 70 percent since the start of the year.
The move on Wednesday was welcomed by investors with Meta shares showing major gains for the day of nearly six percent just ahead of the closing bell in New York.
The downturn has affected companies across the sector, with Apple and Amazon also recently announcing results that disappointed investors.
But Meta also faces some unique problems of its own.
The California-based company is being squeezed by Zuckerberg’s decision to devote billions of dollars to developing the metaverse, an immersive version of the web accessed via virtual reality headsets.
Zuckerberg renamed the company Meta a year ago to reflect the commitment to the project, but the division working on metaverse technology has since made losses of more than $3.5 billion.
Facebook is also struggling to fend off Chinese-owned TikTok, the now dominant social media for younger users to the detriment of Meta’s Instagram.
‘Last resort’
Mike Proulx, a research director at Forrester, said “Meta is amidst an identity crises” and that severe cost-cutting was “inevitable.”
“The company has one foot in a risky long-term metaverse bet and another foot failing to compete with TikTok,” he added.
Zuckerberg has hinted several times this year that belt-tightening measures were just around the corner and said in his letter on Wednesday that staff layoffs were a “last resort.”
Meta would also keep a hiring freeze going into next year, he said, and other spending cuts were envisaged.
“Fundamentally, we’re making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently,” Zuckerberg wrote.
In the US, terminated Meta employees will receive four months severance pay and two additional weeks of pay for each year of service.
Last month, Meta announced profits of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, a 52 percent decrease year-on-year.
The slump in profits comes despite its platforms dominating the world in terms of users — Facebook alone claims to have around two billion people who log on daily.
International
Venezuela Earthquake Death Toll Rises to 4,490 as Rescue Efforts Continue
The death toll from the powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24 has risen to 4,490, according to the latest official figures released by the government on social media.
Authorities reported that 16,740 people have been injured, while more than 19,500 residents remain in temporary shelters after the twin earthquakes devastated Caracas and the neighboring state of La Guaira.
Rescue teams from Venezuela and several foreign countries continue searching through collapsed buildings in an effort to recover victims who remain trapped beneath the rubble.
Government officials said the earthquakes damaged more than 850 buildings, with 190 structures completely collapsing.
Thousands of families who lost their homes are currently staying with relatives or friends, while more than 19,500 displaced people are living in overcrowded emergency camps set up in parks, stadiums, and public squares across La Guaira and Caracas.
International
Tensions Escalate in Middle East as U.S. Bombs Iran After Maritime Attacks
The United States launched new strikes against Iran on Wednesday, following President Donald Trump’s warning that Washington would “hit hard” against the Islamic Republic. While Trump ordered the retaliation after attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, he also said he hoped the latest wave of bombings would end soon and left the door open for renewed negotiations.
U.S. forces “have begun carrying out additional strikes against Iran to further reduce its ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” the United States Central Command said in a post on X.
Washington blamed Iran for what it described as “recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping.”
Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported that explosions were heard in the port cities of Bandar Abbas, Konarak, and Chabahar.
“This is in retaliation for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will be much worse,” Trump wrote on social media alongside an image showing what appeared to be a bombing at an Iranian location.
Before ordering the strikes, the U.S. president said that the ceasefire with Iran had ended. Mediators Pakistan and Qatar called for de-escalation, while the United Nations also urged both sides to reduce tensions.
The Strait of Hormuz remains a critical flashpoint in the Middle East conflict, which began in late February after U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran-linked attacks on at least three vessels in recent days triggered a U.S. offensive against Iranian targets on Tuesday. Tehran responded by launching attacks against Gulf countries that are allies of Washington.
International
Deadly Drug Trade Rivalry Suspected After Eight Bodies Discovered in Southern Mexico
Eight bodies were found Wednesday along a highway in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, in an incident authorities believe may be linked to a dispute over local drug sales.
The victims — six men and two women — were found abandoned on a road in a mountainous area of the municipality of El Bosque, according to the state prosecutor’s office in a statement published on Facebook.
Initial investigations indicate that the killings may be connected to “a dispute over retail drug sales between local criminal groups operating in the region,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Local media reports that several criminal incidents have increased in the area since the beginning of the year.
The road where the bodies were discovered is located in a mountainous region largely inhabited by Indigenous communities. Authorities have not released further details about the victims or possible suspects as the investigation continues.
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