Not all of those 12.000 people are going to be in technology, my guess is that most of them won't be.

The article is also poorly written. The author clearly know that Meta is the parent company, so are the 12.000 people across all Meta properties, or just Facebook? Given that Meta, not Facebook, have 83.000 employees (which seems like a lot to be honest), the 12.000 is across all Meta owned companies. That could mean that Meta is dropping a bunch of projects that doesn't make money, firing the people working on them, while those working in profit centers a safe, for now. I wouldn't be surprised if moderations is going to take a big hit.

As others pointed out "quiet layoff" is a weird term to use, that could mean that initially they won't rehire, at least not externally, when people quit.