Meta starts job cuts impacting employees across the company

Meta has started laying off employees from across the company. This move is part of a broader restructuring effort.

The layoffs are impacting employees in various departments, including those working on the company's flagship social media platforms.

Meta's CEO has confirmed that the job cuts are necessary to ensure the company's long-term growth and success.

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Meta has started laying off employees from across the company, with thousands of workers affected.

About 3,600 workers are being let go, which is roughly 5% of Meta's workforce.

Employees will receive at least 16 weeks' salary, according to Bloomberg.

Meta will replace laid-off employees with machine learning engineers.

The layoffs are happening across various teams, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs.

Employees who worked on Facebook, recruiting, legal operations, and design have been laid off.

A Meta spokesperson clarified that the company's recruiting, legal operations, and Threads teams were unaffected by the layoffs.

Jane Manchun Wong, a well-known Meta app reporter, is among those laid off.

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Meta has laid off a significant number of employees in an effort to "rightsize" the company following aggressive hiring during the pandemic.

In 2022, the company laid off approximately 13% of its workforce, which is around 11,000 employees.

In 2023, Meta laid off another 10,000 workers while withdrawing about 5,000 open roles that remained unfilled.

Meta's job cuts are designed to target employees who receive "met some" or "did not meet" ratings, the bottom two categories in Meta's assessment system, in their performance reviews. This means that managers must identify 12% to 15% of employees eligible for these ratings.

The job cuts are not limited to any specific team, as Meta has started laying off employees across various teams, including Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs. Employees who worked on Facebook, recruiting, legal operations, and design took to social media to announce they were laid off.

Meta aims to reach 10% "nonregrettable attrition" by combining these cuts with previous departures. This means that if a team had 5% attrition in 2024, managers would need to identify another 7% to 10% of their employees for the bottom ratings to meet the target.

Industry experts believe that Meta's recent layoffs target employees who have pushed back against returning to full-time office work. They think that the company is targeting low performers, which could include those who prefer working from home.

Some experts argue that work-from-home arrangements can cost companies productivity. Dr. Robert Chapman Wood, a strategic management professor, believes that getting everyone in a room to figure out how to adapt to changes is crucial.

Meta's layoffs are part of a larger trend in Silicon Valley. Workday and Salesforce have also announced layoffs this month, citing a desire to invest more in artificial intelligence.

The recent layoffs at Meta are not the first time the company has downsized. In 2022-23, Meta sacked about a quarter of its workforce, or 21,000 people.

Meta's job cuts are designed to target employees who received "met some" or "did not meet" ratings in their performance reviews.

Managers must identify 12% to 15% of employees eligible for these ratings, which is roughly 10% of the workforce.

The job cuts aim to reach 10% "nonregrettable attrition" by combining these cuts with previous departures.

For example, if a team had 5% attrition in 2024, managers would need to identify another 7% to 10% of their employees for the bottom ratings to meet the target.

Employees who are laid off will receive notifications through their work and personal email addresses and lose access to company systems within an hour.

Affected employees will also receive information on their severance packages in the same email.

The notifications will be staggered across time zones, with employees in the Asia Pacific region being notified first.

Employees in European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands will be exempt from this process due to local regulations.

These employees will instead follow local performance management processes, and Meta intends to backfill these roles.

Meta has started laying off employees from across the company, with some departments being affected more than others.

Reality Labs and Instagram were among the teams hit by the layoffs, which were confirmed by Meta to TechCrunch and The Verge.

The company's recruiting, legal operations, and design teams were also affected, with some employees taking to social media to announce their layoffs.

Meta's Threads team, however, was not affected by the layoffs, despite some former employees claiming otherwise online.

Jane Manchun Wong, a well-known Meta observer, was among those laid off from the Threads team.

Meta's layoffs are affecting about 3,600 workers, with some employees receiving emails as early as Monday.

The layoffs are part of a larger plan to reduce Meta's workforce by 5%, as announced in January.

Affecting employees will receive at least 16 weeks' salary, which is a more generous severance package than some had feared.

Meta will replace laid-off employees with machine learning engineers, signaling a shift towards more automated processes.

Meta's efficiency drive has already started causing anxiety among some employees. They're worried about being let go due to the company's restructuring efforts.

Impacted workers in the US are being offered a severance package that includes 16 weeks of pay and an additional two weeks for every year of service.

Some employees are feeling the pressure to be loyal to Mark, Meta's CEO, or risk being cut. This has created a culture of fear within the company.

Working at Meta right now "feels like living in a George Orwell novel", said one employee. They're experiencing a sense of self-censorship and feeling more robotic in their work.

Reductions shouldn't be branded as performance-based cuts, as this could damage people's reputations when they seek other opportunities. Now, good employees are being cut just to meet quotas, which is having a negative impact on morale.

The incentive to help new hires ramp up is dwindling, as employees worry they'll just be let go again next year.

Meta has laid off a significant number of employees in recent years.

In 2022, the company laid off approximately 13% of its workforce, which translates to around 11,000 employees.

The layoffs continued in 2023, with Meta letting go of another 10,000 workers.

About 5,000 open roles were also withdrawn in 2023, which adds to the total number of employees affected by the layoffs.