Sources: Meta gave ~10% of staff subpar ratings in recent performance reviews, a sign of more workforce reductions, and cut a bonus metric to 85% of its target
The performance-review process is expected to set the stage for more workforce reductions this year — Why Tech Layoffs Don't Reflect the Job Market
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta's November 2022 announcement of its first broad staff cuts in history was only the opening move. This new reporting shows the machinery being built behind it: roughly 10% of staff tagged with subpar ratings and a bonus metric slashed to 85% of target, which within weeks fed into sources describing multiple further rounds of layoffs matching the ~13% November cut.
The deeper significance is that performance reviews became Meta's standing instrument for headcount control rather than a one-time restructuring tool — a pattern that later hardened into an explicit annual cull, from the 2025 internal memo targeting about 5% of lowest performers for backfill to subsequent rounds where the 'lowest performer' label itself drew complaints that it was highly subjective.
First-order effects
- Roughly 10% of Meta's staff now carry subpar ratings that mark them as cut candidates, while employees who remain take a direct pay hit as the bonus metric drops to 85% of target.
- Managers are effectively pre-positioned for the next reduction wave: the ratings give any future layoff a ready-made justification list without a new company-wide announcement.
Second-order effects
- Mid-ranked engineers facing a downgraded bonus have a fresh incentive to field recruiter interest, shifting bargaining power toward competitors hiring experienced Meta talent.
- Once 'low performer' becomes the official framing for cuts, each subsequent round inherits that template — later reductions were announced as lowest-performer purges, letting Meta reframe layoffs as quality management.
Third-order effects
- Performance-rating systems are turning into a continuous workforce-resizing lever, normalizing annual culls at big tech firms instead of episodic crisis-driven layoffs.
- If subjective labels keep doing the work of headcount targets, expect growing friction over how 'lowest performer' is assigned — including disputes from employees who say their reviews didn't justify the tag.
The trend: Large tech companies are converting annual performance reviews into a permanent mechanism for shrinking and reshaping workforces, replacing one-off mass-layoff events with a recurring ratings-driven cull.