Meta has announced plans to cut approximately 5% of its workforce, which will affect the company’s lowest-performing employees, amid operational shifts.
In an internal memo sent to all employees, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that Meta is working on building some of the most important technologies in the world. Hence, the bar has been raised on performance management, to get rid of low performers.
Part of the memo reads,
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“Meta is working on building some of the most important technologies of the world. Al, glasses as the next computing platform and the future of social media. This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams. I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster.
“We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle, with the intention of back filling these roles in 2025. We won’t manage out everyone who didn’t meet expectations for the last period if we’re optimistic about their future performance, and for those we do let go, we’ll provide generous severance in line with what we provided with previous cuts, We’ll follow up with more guidance for managers ahead of calibrations. People who are impacted will be notified on February 10 or later for those outside the U.S.”
As of September 30, 2024, Meta had about 72,404 employees, a 5% reduction could affect roughly 3,600 jobs. These cuts Mark Meta’s largest workforce reduction since the company slashed 21,000 jobs, approximately 25% of its workforce in 2022 and 2023.
The move comes amidst significant operational changes at Meta, including efforts to build closer ties with U.S President-elect Donald Trump.
“The recent elections feel like a cultural tipping point towards prioritizing speech once again. We’re going back to our roots, focusing on reducing mistakes, simplifying policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement.
Recall that earlier this month, the Meta CEO announced the discontinuation of Meta’s third-party fact-checking program in favor of a “Community Notes” model, similar to X’s Community notes. The company is also changing its content moderation policies around political topics and undoing changes that reduced the amount of political content in user feeds, Zuckerberg said.
The changes will affect Facebook and Instagram, two of the largest social media platforms in the world, each boasting billions of users, as well as Threads.