Meta cutting 5 percent of workforce to jettison ‘low performers’

Reality Labs and Facebook owner Meta intends to cut around 5 percent of its global workforce to “move out low performers faster.”

As first reported by Bloomberg, an internal memo penned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed staff the company will be pursuing “more extensive performance-based cuts this cycle.”

Zuckerberg said he wants to “raise the bar on performance management” ahead of an “intense year.”

The full memo was later obtained by CNBC and claims Meta is currently working on “some of the most important technologies of the world.”

“Meta is working on building some of the most important technologies of the world. AI, 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,” wrote Zuckerberg.

“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.”

Meta said people impacted by the cuts will be notified on February 10, 2025, if they reside in the United States. Employees based elsewhere will find out later.

This is the third round of major layoffs at Meta in recent years. The company slashed 11,000 jobs in 2022 before cutting another 10,000 roles in 2023.

The company formerly known as Facebook is attempting to reposition itself as a metaverse pioneer, but has lately become something of a low performer itself under the stewardship of Zuckerberg.

Meta’s stumbling Reality Labs division, which houses many of its metaverse initiatives including the Quest headset business, lost $4.4 billion during the last quarter.

It’s an eye-watering loss that has become normalized within Meta. The division reported full-year losses of $16.1 billion and $13.7 billion across 2023 and 2022, respectively. Meta execs expect that trend to continue for the foreseeable future. 

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