Meta has been quite successful in keeping itself away from layoffs and job cuts this year, but the urge to realign resources with “long-term strategic goals” inevitably hits every organization soon enough. Meta has announced layoffs across its many platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs.
The exact number of employees who are going to be affected by Meta’s October layoffs has not been revealed, but considering the range of teams that are to face its impact, the total could be quite significant. According to Fortune, around 100 Meta employees were affected by the latest round of employee cuts, but the numbers could be higher.
Meta’s 2024 employee cuts across teams may also focus on reorganizing some employees and moving them to different locations and roles. This could involve some inconveniences for the employees and some might choose to quit rather than be relocated. However, retaining employees and moving them to where their talent can be put to use is a much better alternative to full-blown mass layoffs.
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The Meta Layoffs Are Moving Forward but Details Remain Hard to Come By
News of Meta’s employee cuts was first brought to light by The Verge, but we also saw many employees taking to social media to announce that they had been laid off. Some employees who have been in the public eye, like Jane Manchun Wong who joined the Threads team in 2023 for example, have thanked Meta for the work experience and publicized their availability for future work opportunities.
While Wong might have a wider reach and could successfully find work in the upcoming months, the task of finding a new job is not going to be easy for the rest of the team affected by the Meta layoffs.
In a statement to The Verge, company spokesperson Dave Arnold said, “Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.” He went on to explain that “In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.”
If employees are successfully moved to a different team, they will be able to put their familiarity with the organization to good use and continue to funnel that experience into quality work. Employees impacted have already received advanced notice about the job cuts or reorganization plans and they have the option to apply for an internal position if one is open at the organization. A few of the employees managed to successfully find work within Meta, but according to Fortune, the rest have accepted four months of severance pay.
Sources suggest that many of those included in Meta’s October layoffs are software engineers, which suggests the organization might have over hired and is now bringing down its number as software engineers are otherwise always in high demand for such tech companies.
Meta Takes Disciplinary Action To the Extreme with Job Cuts
Apart from Meta’s overall layoff plans to aid restructuring efforts, the company also went so far as to fire 20 employees last week for misuse of its food credit system. Reports suggest that the organization provided employees with daily credits to purchase food for themselves, and these credits were meant to be used solely for delivery to the Meta offices. These staff members were supposedly provided daily credits worth $20 USD for breakfast and $25 for lunch and dinner separately.
Some employees with these credits at their disposal were choosing to use them to send food home or buy household items that they needed instead. This was an obvious abuse of company resources and the beneficial system provided by Meta, however, many feel that firing the employees was an extreme measure.
Whether the move was justified or not is up for debate, but it’s likely that Meta was already kickstarting its layoff plans and as a result, it was easier to commit to the employee cuts.
Looking at the big picture, Meta’s layoffs at Reality Labs have been unfolding on a smaller scale since last year after the company had to close the doors on its plans to create custom silicones in-house. Reuters first reported on these plans last October and the FAST unit, which had over 600 employees, was the most significantly affected.
Meta’s October layoffs are not expected to match the scale of its 2022 cut down when over 11,000 employees were let go in the aftermath of the pandemic. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” in 2023 saw another 10,000 employees forced to make an exit.
Google, Intel, Tesla, and other big names have already committed to layoffs this year. Discussions on online forums suggest that a few more cuts could occur before Christmas, as has been the trend for the last few years, but organizations should ensure they provide sufficient compensation to the employees they have to release to the current job market.
