Meta will lay off about 5% of its employees, focusing on their productivity. The company plans to hire new staff to replace the dismissed employees in 2025, according to an internal letter sent to employees, Bloomberg reports.
As of September 2024, the company employed about 72,000 people. A 5% reduction will mean layoffs of about 3,600 employees. However, only those who have been with the company long enough to evaluate their performance will be laid off.
"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," wrote Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The performance review will end in February. Zuckerberg also told employees that all employees who will be laid off as a result of the reviews will receive a "generous severance package" that will be in line with previous layoffs.
Taking into account the layoffs that have already taken place in 2024 and future cuts, the company plans to cut 10% of its workforce based on performance.
As a reminder, Meta is currently in the spotlight for far from the best reasons. At the beginning of last week, the company announced rather controversial changes to the moderation policy on its platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, which outraged users.
The company has also been accused of using pirated content to train AI. Mark Zuckerberg himself is actively trying to establish ties with Donald Trump and even wants the future US president to drop his lawsuit against Meta.