Jan 14, 2025 - Business

Meta to cut 5% of staff based on performance

Meta notified employees Tuesday that it plans to lay off the lowest-performing 5% of its staff, or roughly 3,600 people.

Why it matters: It's the third round of major layoffs at Meta in the past three years.

Meta announced 10,000 layoffs in 2023 and 11,000 in 2022. In September, Meta said it had a total of 72,404, down from a peak of over 86,000 in 2022.

Yes, but: The cuts, Meta said, are performance-based, which is different from previous rounds of layoffs that were rooted in cost efficiencies.

The big picture: The cuts are the latest in a slew of changes announced by Meta in the past few weeks ahead of a second Trump administration.

The company terminated its major DEI programs last week and ended its fact-checking program the week prior.

What to watch: Meta isn't alone. Microsoft also announced performance-based cuts last week.