Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is preparing to lay off around 5% of its global workforce, as the company seeks to speed up the firing of “underperformers”.
In a memo to staff, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he made the decision to accelerate the company’s regular performance-based cuts in anticipation of an “intense year.”
He said the company would “backfill” the roles later in 2025.
The company, which employs about 72,000 people globally, did not say how the cuts would be distributed around the world.
Affected US workers will know by February 10, according to Zuckerberg’s memo. Those outside the US will be notified “later.”
“This is going to be an intense year and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams,” he wrote.
“I decided to raise the bar on performance management and weed out poor performers faster.”
This move comes after other big decisions of Mr. Zuckerberg, including moves to end the company’s fact-checking and diversity programs.
Performance-based layoffs are common in corporate America. In Meta, they would usually take place throughout the year, said Mr. Zuckerberg, but the process is accelerating this year.
About 3,600 people could be affected by the move. They will receive “generous severance pay,” he said.
The last major cuts at Meta took place in 2023, when the company reduce about 10,000 positions in a cost-cutting drive after Mr Zuckerberg declared it the “year of efficiency”. It cut around 11,000 roles in 2022.
It seems that Mr. Zuckerberg is also changing his public image.
In a recent podcast with Joe Rogan, Mr. Zuckerberg said he thought companies needed more “masculine energy” and discussed being involved in martial arts, which he said he enjoyed because he felt he could express himself more fully than in his corporate role.
“When you’re running a company, people usually don’t want to see you as this ruthless person who’s like, ‘I’m going to crush the people I’m competing with,'” he said. “But when you fight, it’s like no.”
“I think in some ways when people see me competing in sports they say oh no, ‘That’s the real Mark.’
