- On Wednesday, thousands of Meta workers received early morning emails regarding whether they still had jobs.
- Layoffs have hit workers and many managers at Facebook, Reality Labs, Instagram and WhatsApp.
- The second half of the cuts will come to business divisions next month.
Meta began another round of layoffs on Wednesday, and staff left again to see which jobs, levels and teams were affected by the cuts.
More than 1,000 workers in technical and engineering roles gathered in group messages viewed by Insider to share information and discuss whether they or their teammates were laid off in another round of cuts during the Meta’s Year of Competence. The company, formerly known as Facebook, has not internally identified which parts of the company have been affected. Meta experienced its first mass layoffs in November, when 11,000 people were let go.
Meta’s head of human resources Lori Goler posted a memo to the company’s internal Workplace forum Tuesday night, confirming that a previously announced round of layoffs would begin Wednesday and that emails informing people of their employment status would be sent starting at 4 a.m. PST. The cuts hit workers across the company at Facebook, Reality Labs, Instagram and WhatsApp.
“The whole company is reeling today,” said a worker who survived the cuts. “This is rough.”
“The layoffs were important in organizations that everyone thought would not be affected,” said another worker who survived the cuts.
Meta will have another set of layoffs next month, this time affecting Meta’s business roles. These sales are expected to begin the week of May 22nd, as Insider previously reported.
A Meta spokesman declined to comment.
The directors were deeply affected
Administrative roles, including product management, were most affected by Wednesday’s cuts, according to messages seen by Insider and now several current and former employees. So many technical product managers (TPMs) at Reality Labs, Facebook, and Instagram have lost their jobs that one worker who survived the cuts speculated that Meta is “trying to completely eliminate the TPM role.”
Even several managers who have recently received high performance ratings of “meets all expectations” and “exceeds expectations” have been let go, according to the letters. And several directors have not been laid off, but have received emails saying they will automatically be moved into a new role as an individual contributor.
Several employees who are still holding their jobs have been assigned a new manager without being told if their previous manager was laid off, several people told Insider.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously said he wants to “flatten” Meta’s structure. Before the layoffs, many managers were told they would be shifted to a non-management role, Insider reported.
According to the letters, many full-time Meta employees who work remotely have also been laid off — often outside California, New York and Washington, where Meta has large offices. Meta recently stopped offering remote work in job postings, Insider reported. A company spokesperson said at the time that the move was “temporary”.
How did the layoffs happen?
Thousands of technology and engineering workers received emails over the course of about two hours Wednesday morning. Those who were safe received a note with the subject line “Your role has not been affected as part of today’s layoffs.”
Those who were laid off received a note that said “letter from the Meta leadership team” along with a general explanation of the decisions to work at Meta, related to Zuckerberg’s desire to become a “leaner” organization, according to several people who received the notes. They have access to their work email until 11 p.m. PT tonight.
Several workers at Meta’s London headquarters have received notes telling them they “could be affected” by the layoffs, as labor laws in the UK and Europe prevent companies from suddenly laying off large numbers of people and require workers to have advance notice.
HR representatives held a Zoom call with the laid-off workers around 11 a.m. PST to answer questions submitted regarding the layoffs. Laid-off workers generally received 16 weeks of severance pay and a year of benefits coverage, as did those laid off in November.
One of the workers said in a message discussing the call that it was “Corporate-GPT” answering questions, a joke referring to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot that answers questions through generative AI.
affected jobs
Below is a running list of job types and specific Meta teams that have been affected by this round of layoffs. It will be updated with new information as it becomes available.
UX research
User experience responsibility and privacy
research science
The science of artificial intelligence research
Software Engineering
Data engineering
rotation engineering
infrastructure
Product design
Profile +
Profile ranking
advertisements
monetization
central product
messenger
PyTorch
Are you a meta employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at [email protected], on the secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or via Twitter DM at @hayskali. Communicate using a non-work device.