Meta Cuts 5 Percentage of Workforce to Remove Lowest Performers

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is set to reduce around 5% of its global workforce as part of efforts to swiftly eliminate "low performers." In a memo to employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that the decision was made to accelerate the company’s usual performance-based cuts in preparation for an "intense year" ahead.

He said that the corporation will later "backfill" the positions within 2025. The company has about 72,000 employees all over the world without indicating where the workers might be allocated.

According to the memo issued by Zuckerberg, the layoff notifications will be extended to U.S. employees on February 10, while those outside America will receive theirs at a later date.

"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've decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster."

These decisions have been a collection of many other important steps taken by Zuckerberg, both globally and in India, including shutting down fact-checking and diversity programs in his company.

Performance-related terminations are quite the norm in the U.S. corporate arena where Mark Zuckerberg stated that Meta expects these performance cuts to be spread over the year, but this year, they have all been put through quickly.

According to the tycoon, the expected impact on about 3,600 employees would be covered with "significant severance".

In Meta's most recent case of major layoffs, which came a year later in 2023, more than 10,000 jobs were done away with as part of cost-cutting measures put in place, following Zuckerberg's observation that it would be the breakeven year, 2022. Meta used to have around 11,000 jobs that were reduced last year.

The head of Meta seems to be reinventing the public image of himself.

In the conversation recently held with Joe Rogan in his podcast, Zuckerberg shared that he respected and encouraged the expression of masculine energy in a company while explaining his interest in martial arts. He stated that he does martial arts because it allows him to express himself more than in his corporate role.

"When you're running a company, people typically don't wanna see you being like this ruthless person who's just like I'm gonna crush the people I'm competing with," he said. "But when you're fighting, it's like no."

"I think in some ways when people see me competing in the sport they're like oh no, 'That's the real Mark."