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Meta to Lay Off 5% of its Workforce

Elizabeth Greenberg

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meta job cuts
Meta is reportedly beginning a new round of layoffs, which could cut around 3,600 of its 72,000 workforce.

Meta is not slowing down when it comes to major announcements and shifts, as reports that it will cut around 5% of its global workforce were revealed in a memo to staff.

This follows days after Mark Zuckerberg made several transformative calls, including sawing off its third-party factcheckers, ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes, and changing its hate speech moderation qualifications.

Zuckerberg further fanned flames when he publicly said that work environments needed to embrace more ‘masculine energy’.

Now, the founder and CEO of Meta, who is privately worth $211 billion, said he will begin cutting the company’s poorest performers in what he said would be an “intense year” for the social media conglomerate.

Zuckerberg described the move as “rais[ing] the bar on performance management,” in the memo first reported by Bloomberg.

“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.”

Those working in the US will find out their fate with the company by 10 February, with the rest of the global workforce set to find out later.

The memo did say that only those who have worked with Meta long enough to need a performance review would be subject to the layoffs, and that severance would be provided in line with previous job cut rounds.

Meta’s recent tumult of changes seem politically charged, focused on appeasing a right-wing call against ‘woke’ diversity policies, citing fact checking as censorship, and in support of the ‘bro’ culture popularised by President-elect Trump’s billionaire ally Elon Musk.


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The layoffs however, seem to be in line with the pendulum swing of tech’s AI ambitions, as Zuckerberg said the company would focus on important technologies, including AI.

Meta’s shares have already dropped by 2.3% on Tuesday following the flurry of policy changes.

How the newest round of layoffs and new policies will affect Meta’s reputation – with the public, with governments, and with investors – remains to be seen.

Elizabeth Greenberg

Staff Writer

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