Meta to lay off 5pc of its ‘lowest performers’

15 Jan 2025

Image: © Askar/Stock.adobe.com

CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the decision to ‘move out low performers faster’ in an internal memo circulated to staff.

Meta announced yesterday (14 January) that it would lay off 5pc of its global staff, starting with its lowest performing employees.

The news concerning the job cuts was circulated among employees at the tech giant in the form of an internal memo from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and was initially reported by Bloomberg. Employees who will be affected by the job cuts will be notified by 10 February in the US or later for those in other regions, while those laid off will be replaced by new hires.

In the memo, Zuckerberg described his intention to “raise the bar on performance management” and “move out low performers faster”.

“This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams,” he explained.

Zuckerberg also said that while Meta “typically” manages out staff who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, it is now going to carry out more widespread performance-based cuts in 2025.

“This means we are aiming to exit approximately another 5pc of our current employees who have been with the company long enough to receive a performance rating,” Meta said.

In addition, Zuckerberg asserted that Meta would provide “generous severance”.

Meta currently has around 72,000 employees globally (with about 2,000 people based in Ireland), which means that this change would result in around 3,600 people being let go from the company.

The company is no stranger to large-scale job cuts – in 2022, it cut 11,000 jobs globally, with Irish workers affected, and in 2023, the business announced that it would cut 10,000 jobs worldwide.

The news of the Meta job cuts has prompted unease from the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke, TD, especially as the business has cut around 840 Irish jobs in recent years.

In a statement, Burke said: “My primary concern is for the staff and their families who are now coming to terms with the impact of this announcement.”

However, he also said that officials at his department, as well as IDA Ireland, are currently liaising Meta in relation to the “possible impact for its Irish operations”.

Furthermore, Burke’s department maintained that Ireland’s technology sector is “made up of a vibrant start-up ecosystem, high quality tech talent, an innovative research ecosystem and a strong FDI base”.

Meta made headlines last week when a separate memo detailed how it would scrap its major diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes. The company said that this was because it was of the view that the label DEI has “become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others”.

Meta also attracted controversy when it announced that it would end its third-party fact checking on its platforms, opting instead for community notes akin to X.

Moreover, earlier this month, the company  announced the appointment of Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican as the company’s global affairs VP to replace Nick Clegg, as well as adding Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White and Exor CEO John Elkann to its board of directors.

SiliconRepublic.com has commented Meta for comment about the latest job cuts.

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Ciarán Mather was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com