In an internal memo sent out to employees on 14th of January 2025, Meta Platforms, Inc. announced a performance based cut of meta employees. It stated that the company sought to layoff 5% of its lowest performers from the US, Europe, Asia and Africa exempting Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
The memo further revealed that employees affected by layoffs in the US would be notified by February 10, 2025 with their severance pay; those in Europe, Asia and Africa are to receive theirs between February 11 and 18 2025. Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands are exempt from the cut because of local laws regarding labour protection.
In Germany, companies are required to negotiate with its workers’ council before termination of employment. French local laws impose significant restrictions on dismissals, as an extensive justification must be provided as well as severance obligations. Unfortunately, this is not a global policy. Labour laws of the affected countries do not impose consultations or protection for fixed-term contract employees unless the layoffs occur before the stipulated date of contract termination.
This is the third wave of layoffs in Meta. Since the covid pandemic, the company laid off 11,000 employees in November 2022 and another 10,000 employees in March 2023. These two layoffs were driven based on the need to reduce the number of staff, whilst in this case, the layoffs are purely performance based.
True to their word, on the 10th of February 2025, implementing the layoffs went under way. Affected employees received notifications in their emails, which included information about their severance package and other benefits.
Meta has an employee base of 74,069 (as at December 2024, according to statista), the percentage of layoffs is sure to affect approximately 3,704 employees. Whilst it is said that they will fill the vacant positions with new talents, most affected meta employees will have a hard time coming to terms with this change.
People have raised concerns for employees affected by the layoffs. As the stigma of being fired due to being a “low performance employee” would leave a lasting stain in getting prospective employment in the tech world.
In TheStreet interview with an affected employee to learn more about the layoff process and the conditions that the performance-based cuts were based on, Meta has a six-level performance system which are graded from highest to lowest as:
Redefines Expectations (RE), Greatly Exceeds Expectations (GE), Exceeds Expectations (EE), Meets All Expectations (MA), Meets Most Expectations (MM) and Meets Some Expectations (MS).
Employees affected by the performance-based cuts were below MA grade, although speculations have been circling the net concerning foul play in the layoffs process. Some employees stated they were at an EE grade level in their last performance review before the layoffs took place, hence the announcement left them bewildered.
In an internal memo viewed and reported by Bloomberg, CEO Mark Zuckerburg said,“I have decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster”. The decision to implement the layoffs was a step in preparing the company for an “intense year”.
Meta is working on building some of the most important technologies in the world. One of which includes AI glasses, which will serve as the next computing platform and future of social media.
Meta aims to direct its focus more on artificial intelligence and virtual reality as billions have been invested into these projects and meta is in the process of hiring machine learning engineers to propel its AI goals. This has led to speculations that the performance based cuts were a means to streamline Meta’s workforce and enable the company to focus more on AI.
