Facebook owner Meta Platforms is set to implement another round of layoffs across its operations in Africa, Europe, and Asia starting Monday next week.
The company informed its staff of the plans in an internal memo seen by Reuters on Friday.
Notices will go out to employees losing their jobs starting at 5 a.m. local time Monday in most countries, including in the U.S., according to one of the posts, authored by Meta’s Head of People Janelle Gale.
However, employees in Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands will be exempt from the cuts “due to local regulations,” while those in more than a dozen other countries across Europe, Asia and Africa will receive their notifications between February 11 and February 18, it said.
Lowest performers to be affected
The company confirmed last month that it was planning to trim about 5% of its “lowest performers” and backfill at least some of the positions.
- The Friday memo, in which Gale referred to the cuts as “performance terminations,” was first reported by The Information.
- Unlike with previous company-wide layoffs, Meta was planning to keep its offices open on Monday and would not issue any updates providing further details on the decisions, Gale said in her post.
Meta is hiring machine learning engineers
A separate memo, posted by VP of Engineering for Monetization Peng Fan also on Friday, asked staffers to assist with an expedited hiring process for machine learning engineers and other “business critical” engineering roles.
That process would take place between February 11 and March 13, Fan said in that post.
“Thank you for your continued support in helping us achieve our accelerated hiring goals, and better align with our company’s priorities for 2025,” he stated.
What you should know
In June last year, Meta started trimming down its office space in Lagos following the workforce reductions in mid-2023 that impacted at least 35 Nigerian employees, including the entire engineering team.
- However, the social media giant at the time said the move was part of a regular review process to optimize its real estate footprint.
- The company said it plans to transition to a desk-sharing model for employees who primarily work remotely.
- While Meta downplayed the reduction of its office space, it confirmed it was no longer using engineers in Nigeria for its operations.
- It is unclear yet how many Nigerians will be impacted in the latest round of layoffs as it is also targeting its operations in Africa.
