Meta ‘plans to cut 5% of lowest performing staff’ as Zuckerberg ‘raises the bar’
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Meta is planning to cut about 5% of staff it considers to be its lowest performers, it has been reported. Bloomberg reported that an internal memo sent to staff by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he had “decided to raise the bar on performance management” in order to “move out low-performers faster”.
According to the memo, Mr Zuckerberg said the company typically “manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year”, but was now planning on “more extensive performance-based cuts” sooner. Meta is said to have already cut about 5% of low performers during 2024, but has a target of 10% for its current “performance cycle”, which meant it was looking to “exit approximately another 5% of our current employees who have been with the company long enough to receive a performance rating”.
In his note, Mr Zuckerberg said Meta would “provide generous severance”. The policy is the latest in a time of dramatic change at the tech giant, following its announcement last week that it was stopping its use of fact-checkers, starting in the US, and moving to a Community Notes system similar to X because fact-checkers were “politically biased”.
Mr Zuckerberg said it was also stripping back its automated content moderation systems as it was removing too much content and this amounted to “censorship”, with the changes aiming to restore “free expression” on its platforms. The move has been widely condemned by online safety campaigners, who have warned it will allow misinformation and harmful content to spread on Meta platforms.
