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Meta Platforms Inc on Monday began notifying staff of job cuts, kick-starting a process that would terminate thousands of people as the company cracks down on “low-performers” and scours for new talent to dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) race.
Meta workers who were let go were notified via e-mail, and the company is offering US-based employees severance packages that include 16 weeks of salary and two weeks for each year of service, people familiar with the matter said.
Employees whose review merited a bonus would still get one, and staff would still receive stock awards as part of the upcoming vesting cycle later this month, they said.
Photo: Bloomberg
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that Meta would cut 5 percent of its workforce — as many as 3,600 people — with a focus on staff who “aren’t meeting expectations,” Bloomberg News first reported mid-last month.
Zuckerberg last month said that affected US-based employees would be notified on Monday, while international employees could learn later.
In a separate message to managers, he said the cuts would create headcounts for the company to hire the “strongest talent.”
Job cuts have been consistent at Meta in recent years. The company laid off thousands of employees in 2022 and 2023 as part of an efficiency push.
The latest wave of firings are expected to be completed by the end of the performance cycle that goes through this month. They come as Meta seeks to beat out competitors, including OpenAI and DeepSeek (深度求索), in a fast-moving AI race.
Zuckerberg last month told investors that Meta anticipates eventually spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure.
The Menlo Park, California-based company is applying AI across its range of apps and business units, from social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to virtual-reality glasses.