Meta laid off 5% of its workforce, calling them ‘low performers.’ Those
who were laid off see things differently—and they’re speaking out.
Joe Berkowitz (4 minute read)
Meta underwent another big round of layoffs on Monday, cutting 3,600
jobs, or roughly 5%, of its total workforce. Between 2022 and 2023, the
tech giant eliminated 21,000 positions, nearly a quarter of its
workforce, and continued to reduce staff in 2024. But while those other
recent reductions appeared driven by organizational restructuring and cost-cutting efforts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to tie this week’s
layoffs to those he deemed “low performers.”
“I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out
low performers faster,” Zuckerberg wrote in an internal memo when
announcing the cuts in January. “We typically manage out people who
aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re
going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle.”
Some of the employees who have just been let go object to this characterization, though, and they are fighting back.
Layoffs are increasingly common in tech, but they’re often framed as a failure of the company and its leaders rather than a reflection of
individual employees. (Although Amazon famously culls its workforce
based on performance metrics, and Microsoft reportedly has plans to do
the same.) Given Meta’s public trumpeting of the “low-performer”
criteria for this recent initiative, however, being swept up in this
batch of layoffs seems closer to just getting fired.
When these newly unemployed workers apply for other jobs, the concern is
that hiring managers who might ordinarily be impressed with seeing “Facebook” on a CV will know exactly why these applicants are suddenly
on the market—and, as a result, may be less inclined to give them a
chance to defend themselves in an interview.
Instead of waiting to find out for sure, some laid-off workers have
started preemptively defending themselves online—and they are bringing receipts.
Kaila Curry, who, until Monday, worked in product content operations at
Meta, posted on LinkedIn her surprise at being lumped in with supposed
low performers after receiving an “exceeds expectations” in her mid-year review. “I frequently asked for feedback and was always told I was doing
a good job,” she wrote in the post. “I was never placed on a
[performance improvement plan], never given corrective feedback, and
never properly mentored or provided clear expectations.
Curry’s experience lines up with a new report from Business Insider,
claiming Meta’s director of people experience allowed managers to add employees from higher-performance tiers to those marked for layoffs if
they couldn’t reach their reduction goals just from lower-rated
employees. A spokesperson for Meta tells Fast Company that these were “performance-based terminations,” adding, “Prior ratings were not downgraded. Simply because someone had a history of meeting or exceeding expectations does not mean they continue to consistently meet the bar.”
In searching for other potential reasons for her inclusion in the
layoffs, though, Curry cites one recent incident: “Perhaps I became too
vocal when our shift to young adult (YA) content involved removing
safeguards that protected LGBTQ+ users.”
The past few months have been a time of transition for Meta. The company
has recently made major changes to its content moderation and DEI
policies that appear in line with Zuckerberg’s recent embrace of
President Trump. (The CEO also donated to Trump’s inauguration fund,
added UFC CEO and Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board, and declared on
Joe Rogan’s podcast in January that companies currently need more “masculine energy.“)
Another former employee, data scientist Joshua Latshaw, was also taken
aback by his inclusion in the layoffs. As he wrote on LinkedIn, his
five-year history with the company included several “exceeds
expectations” ratings and a promotion. (His post even includes
screenshots of those reviews in the comments.) According to Latshaw’s
post, a “meets most expectations” in 2024 followed months of turmoil
within his team—with the managers who conducted his review having only
worked with him for less than six weeks.
“This is the first [Performance Summary Cycle] at [M]eta that I wasn’t exactly correct in predicting my rating,” he wrote.
The lone “meets most expectations” rating in Latshaw’s tenure at Meta
was also striking, he notes, because it followed his taking parental
leave earlier in the year. Over on Reddit’s r/Layoffs sub, a
pseudonymous poster, identifying as a senior-level Meta employee who was
let go on Monday, wrote that she, too, had taken maternity leave in the
lead-up to her layoff. Several posters elsewhere on Reddit describe
rumors of other Meta employees being laid off after returning from a
recent parental or medical leave. (Meta did not comment on this.)
Regardless of what led each Meta employee to wind up in this round of
layoffs, it’s clear that the “low performer” moniker struck a nerve
among those affected. Meta’s stock has been on the rise, with shares
gaining 65% in 2024. Yet, considering that Zuckerberg’s big bet on the metaverse continues to cost his company billions of dollars per quarter,
the CEO should maybe consider himself fortunate to have evaded the “low performer” label himself.
Source: <
https://www.fastcompany.com/91276893/meta-laid-off-low-performers-defend-themselves-on-linkedin-and-reddit>
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