CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 'Year of Efficiency' to include more job cuts
As early as this week, Meta may be conducting another round of layoffs.
The Menlo Park, CA-based parent company of Facebook and Instagram will aim to cut thousands of employees, Bloomberg reported.
“Our management theme for 2023 is the ‘Year of Efficiency’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the social networking giant’s fourth-quarter earnings report on Feb. 1.
Meta has also been giving buyout packages to managers and cutting “nonessential” teams, Bloomberg reported. In November, the technology firm cut 13% of its workforce, more than 11,000 employees, in its largest round of layoffs to date. Additionally, the company reduced discretionary spending and extended its hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023.
The new round of layoffs was expected after Meta reportedly issued “subpar ratings” to thousands of employees in their recent performance reviews. Furthermore, approximately 10% of workers received ratings indicating that they were underperforming. Additionally, the social media giant cut a bonus metric to 85% of its target.
“We’ve always had a goal-based culture of high performance, and our review process is intended to incentivize long-term thinking and high-quality work, while helping employees get actionable feedback,” a Meta spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
“In this new environment, we need to become more capital efficient,” Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees in November. “We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.”
In September, Meta gave many of its employees a month to apply for different positions within the company, the Wall Street Journal reported. Re-organizing departments was expected to be merely the first step toward larger staff reductions. In July, engineering managers at Meta were tasked with identifying anyone on their team who “needs support” and reporting them in an internal HR system, The Information reported. “If a direct report is coasting or is a low performer, they are not who we need; they are failing this company,” wrote Maher Saba, the company’s head of engineering. “As a manager, you cannot allow someone to be net neutral or negative for Meta.”
