United States: Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is set to reduce its global workforce by approximately 5 percent, to about 3,600 employees. The decision, announced in a memo from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, aims to expedite performance-based job cuts as the company schedules for what Zuckerberg described as an “intense year.”
The layoffs, predicted to impact employees worldwide, will begin with U.S.-based workers understanding their status by February 10. Employees outside the U.S. will be announced later, though specific regional details have not been disclosed. Affected employees are pledged “generous severance,” according to Zuckerberg’s memo.
Meta currently employs around 72,000 people globally. This latest round of cuts follows the last workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, which eliminated 11,000 and 10,000 positions, respectively. These were part of broader cost-cutting efforts under Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” initiative.
In his memo, Zuckerberg highlighted the need to “move out low performers faster” and “raise the bar on performance management” to ensure only the best talent remains. Despite the job cuts, Meta intends to “backfill” these roles later in 2025.
This move accompanies other substantial changes at the company, including the termination of its fact-checking and diversity programmes. Zuckerberg, who has been reshaping his public image, recently spoke on a podcast about the importance of “masculine energy” and his affection for martial arts.
He described the sport as a way to express himself more freely compared to his corporate persona, saying that, “When you’re running a company, people typically don’t wanna see you being ruthless. But when you’re fighting, it’s like no, ‘That’s the real Mark.’”
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