Meta lays off staff over performance, adding to its “cut-throat” culture

With more mass layoffs hitting the tech industry in 2025, seeing yet another headline pop up around workplace redundancies isn’t much of a surprise anymore.

But Meta’s latest round of layoffs are a little different this time. The tech giant, which recently announced it would be cutting 5% of its workforce, said that it would be terminating low-performing staff as part of its “Year of Efficiency” strategy. 

However, affected employees have slammed the company for this decision, with claims that its performance management system had downgraded their rankings, despite having a good performance history.

With news around the removal of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programme, ending fact-checking and founder Mark Zuckerberg donating $1 million to the Trump fund, the company’s latest wave of layoffs seems to be a testament to its more recent cut-throat, dog-eat-dog culture.

Meta terminates “low-performing” employees

As part of the company’s new strategy, Zuckerberg announced in a staff memo that he would “move out low performers faster”, while also increasing the use of Meta’s performance management system.

As a result, around 3,600 of its global workforce will be cut, although it has plans to hire new people to fill these positions later this year.

“We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year,” Zuckerberg said. “But we’re now going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle.”

Fellow tech giant Microsoft also cut a small percentage of its staff earlier this year for the same reason. Salesforce also laid off 1,000 employees to cut out low-performers and restructure the business to focus on its AI initiative, Agentforce.

High-performing workers express frustration over layoffs

Terminated employees have been quick to challenge Meta over its decision, particularly from staff who say that they performed up to a good standard. 

According to Business Insider, eight employees who were laid off said they received “At or Above Expectations” ratings last year – the middle tier in the company’s three-level performance review system. They also discovered that their ratings had decreased to “Meets Most”, one of the lowest tiers of the system. 

One affected employee commented: “When I received the email I was surprised by it mostly because I have a very solid performance history and no indicators of the last six months of performance problems.”

Meanwhile, another employee posted documents on Meta’s internal communications platform, showing that they had consistently met or exceeded their targets before being downgraded to “Meets Most” last year. An employee who returned from parental leave was also reportedly cut after receiving the same ratings.

As a result, many affected employees have been left feeling misrepresented, as being publicly named as an underperformer could harm future job prospects.

“The hardest part is Meta publicly stating they’re cutting low performers, so it feels like we have the scarlet letter on our backs,” another employee said. “People need to know we’re not underperformers.”

Some European employees are protected by regulations

Unlike past redundancies, Meta will not be closing down more offices and won’t make a company-wide announcement. The layoffs will also be staggered across multiple regions. Employees in Asia-Pacific will be notified first, followed by Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and then North and Latin America.

However, employees based in France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands will be exempt due to local regulations.

For example, in France, local labour regulations around workplace layoffs are very strict. An employer is legally required to justify termination under one of the following conditions: voluntary personal reasons (e.g. workplace harassment), involuntary personal reasons (e.g. an employee is unable to perform their role through no fault of their own) and economic reasons. From there, if an employer plans to undertake mass layoffs, they’d be required to consult with the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) before doing so.

The decline in Meta’s company culture, according to employees

According to Meta, the company has adopted an organisational culture that encourages innovation, teamwork and a growth mindset.

But while the company continues to maintain favourable employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Comparably, this latest wave of redundancies has seen ex-employees describe its environment in a very different light.

Specifically, users on Reddit commented that its workplace culture was once a friendly and rewarding environment, but had become more “cut-throat” in recent years.

“When I was there it was the heyday of the company and there was a vibe of people really feeling like we could do something good, both in our products and the way that companies treat employees,” a user wrote. 

“By the time I left, things felt more cut-throat and less friendly. The benefits were still amazing, but the culture was very ‘you are lucky to have these perks so you better work to keep them, but also you are worthless and nobody will hire you once you leave here’.”

Another user commented: “I do not plan on working here much longer – the work-life balance has been extremely terrible and these added policies just confirm this is no longer the company I once loved and was hopeful of working at.”

Unfortunately, Meta is just one of many tech companies carrying out redundancies in what seems like a never-ending cycle of hiring and firing on both sides of the pond. But with more layoffs expected this year in the UK, particularly with economic uncertainties and the increase in National Insurance Contributions (NICs), potentially being branded as an “underperformer” will undoubtedly raise concerns amongst many employees.