Anneka Patel, in a LinkedIn post, said her heart sank when she heard she was fired.
New Delhi:
Among the 11,000 employees laid off of Meta, the owner of Facebook, is a communications director on maternity leave. She said she woke up at 3 a.m. to feed her three-month-old daughter, “At 5:35 a.m., I received an email saying I had been placed on layoff. My heart sank,” she said. woman of Indian origin, Anneka Patel, said in a LinkedIn post.
She said she had heard the company could make a significant cut, so checked her email.
“So, what’s next? It’s a difficult question to answer. My maternity leave ends in February and while these early months of motherhood have been one of the biggest challenges of my life, I’m sure it’s going to be a tough one.” I wouldn’t trade them for the world,” added Ms. Patel.
Ms. Patel’s is one of many human stories behind Meta’s job cuts, following the cuts by other tech giants like Twitter and Microsoft.
Anneka Patel took the job in May 2020 as Meta recruited aggressively during the Covid pandemic, judging that the sudden increase in online traffic was a permanent change in people’s behaviour. Number of employees doubled to almost 90,000 in two years.
Company director Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in yesterday’s announcement post.
Ms. Patel said she moved from her London headquarters to the US with the hope of one day working for Meta. She posted, “I will continue to spend my time with my daughter over the next few months, and will be open to work in the new year.”
Another employee, Himanshu V, said he just moved to Canada from India for a new Meta job. In a LinkedIn post, he wrote, “I moved to Canada to join Meta and two days after joining, my journey came to an end as I was hit by a massive layoff. Heart of I go to everyone who is facing difficult circumstances right now.”
While Meta cut 13 percent of staff, another social media giant Twitter, under new owner Elon Musk, cut its workforce in half.
The Twitter layoffs were particularly chaotic. Many employees find out when they are suddenly cut off from an office chat room or email. Elon Musk said the move was necessary to stem the losses. He then asked some laid-off workers to return – one of many decisions to go back and forth since he took over about two weeks ago.
Byju’s and Snap have also announced major layoffs over the past two months.
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