Meta's search for 'efficiency' creates new wave of layoffs

About 100 people were affected by the latest round of restructuring and some related redistribution of resources to Meta, three people with knowledge of the company said. fate Such changes and related incremental cuts to teams have been frequent this year, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg stuck to his promise that 2023's “year of efficiency” would become a “permanent” part of how his company moves forward. A handful of staff at Instagram and Messenger were cut earlier this year amid other team reorganizations and the elimination of certain job titles.

This week's cuts mark at least the third time this year that Meta has seen incremental layoffs. This time, it mostly affected people working at Instagram, Facebook and Reality Labs, according to people in the know. Many of those affected were software engineers whose specific roles were eliminated, but some monetization jobs were also cut. The Verge first reported layoffs at Meta, though no specifics were reported.

Most of those affected received several weeks' advance notice that their roles were either eliminated or moved to a new team or position and were allowed to apply internally for other jobs available to them. Some have been successful. Nothing was. Others accepted the divorce four months earlier rather than go through that process, according to people familiar with the matter.

The layoffs are separate from a disciplinary action last week that let go about 20 people at Meta's Los Angeles office for improper use of GroupHub credits. The credits were specifically given to employees to buy food while working at the office, but some were seen using the credits for personal items or home deliveries over several months, as first reported. FT

Meta, which had 70,799 full-time employees at the end of its most recently reported quarter, has cut tens of thousands of employees between 2022 and 2023 in the wake of the pandemic. While the company may not have such sweeping layoffs in 2024, team-specific restructurings this year have felt “constant,” one of the people said. fate, Note that Reality Labs seems to go through a reorganization “every few months.”

Another said that while such changes have long been a part of Mater operations, a new push toward working on AI projects means more resources are being directed to AI and infrastructure teams. The company is going through a process of “remapping” roles, determining where certain teams will be physically located in a three-day office work order that has led to some jobs being moved or eliminated, the person said.

“Several teams at Meta are making changes to align resources with their long-term strategic goals and positioning strategy,” a Meta spokesperson said fate “This includes moving some teams to different locations and moving some employees to different roles. In such circumstances when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for affected employees.”

However, not all those laid off were given such notice, two sources said fate A number of people were “surprised” by emails hitting their inboxes this week explaining that this Friday would be their last day at work as their roles had been axed. “It's not treating everyone the same,” said one man.

Several of the laid-off employees had been in their jobs for a year or less, according to two sources. Jane Manchu Wong, who gained notoriety online for reverse-engineering incoming features for social media platforms before announcing them, joined Meta last year to work on its new platform, Threads. However, he moved this year to a team within Instagram that was affected by this round of layoffs. Wang posted that he was impressed by the thread's cut. However, no one working on the Threads team was laid off.

Despite the incremental nature of this latest round of layoffs, workers at Meta expect more such cuts later this year or early next year. Although the company is hiring more, keeping headcount is “very tight,” the person said, and performance reviews are tougher than ever.

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