Meta is cutting 5% of its workforce, as Zuckerberg expects
- Meta wants to reduce its workforce by 5%
- CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to weed out underperforming companies and bring in new talent
- Due to the cuts, the workforce will decrease by approximately 10% this year
Meta plans to cut 5% of its workforce, according to an internal memo shared by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to employees and acquired by Bloomberg.
Figures put Meta’s current workforce at around 72,500, meaning the layoffs would affect at least 3,600 of the company’s “underperformers.”
“We normally bail out people who don’t meet expectations over the course of a year, but now we’ll be making more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle,” Zuckerberg said in the memo.
‘This will be an intense year’
“I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and get rid of underperforming employees faster,” Zuckerberg said, further stating that the company would continue to fill the open positions through 2025.
Those who will be expelled from the company in the US are expected to be notified on February 10 and will receive a “generous severance package,” according to Zuckerberg, while foreign workers will likely be notified at a later date. Meta laid off about 21,000 employees between 2022 and 2023, while Zuckerberg cut 10,000 of these jobs during the company’s “year of efficiency,” ’23.
This year, Meta’s workforce is expected to decline by 10% due to current job losses and turnover. Going forward, the company plans to focus heavily on AI, smart glasses and its social media platforms, with Zuckerberg likely poised to fill the looming gap in the market caused by TikTok’s impending ban in the US on January 19.
Zuckerberg also recently announced that Meta would end its diversity, equality, and inclusion programs and that Facebook and Instagram would move from “politically biased” fact-checking services to a community-based note-taking system, similar to Twitter (now known as X).