Meta employees scramble to use benefits before layoffs

Before dead The last round of Mass layoffs tomorrowSome employees are leaving their desks, giving up their work, and taking up perks they may soon lose, several people at the company tell WIRED.

Two employees describe a widespread rush to use up to $2,000 a year in flexible benefits, which can cover a variety of expenses including health and wellness activities. A separate $200 credit every three years toward audio equipment purchases has led to a scramble to buy Apple AirPods and other headphones. Another source says Meta offices have been largely empty this week, with people prioritizing polishing their resumes and gathering off-site to console friends in what may be their last time as colleagues. Sources say employees are variously experiencing “paralysis,” “retraction” and “panic.”

Meta plans to lay off about 10% of its roughly 80,000 employees on Wednesday, with notices to be sent to personal and email addresses of affected workers at 4 a.m. local time, according to a company-wide memo sent Monday. The cuts come at a time when the social media giant behind Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook is enjoying record high profits.

But CEO Mark Zuckerberg insists that the company must free up cash to invest in AI data centers, and that Meta could do well with fewer employees due to AI technologies that augment human labor.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. The company has undergone three previous large rounds of layoffs since 2022, including as part of a one-time Meta layoff.Competency year“In 2023. But although the latest round is smaller than two, it is subject to widespread scrutiny because it comes at a time of societal concern about The impact of artificial intelligence on jobs.

Inside Meta, looming cuts are among many concerns that have sent morale plummeting to unprecedented depths, according to 16 current and former employees. She recently spoke to WIRED. Employees were also frustrated by being “recruited” into a new AI team without any choice Launching monitoring programs Tracks US workers’ laptop use to train AI models.

Meta is also planning an internal restructuring as it undertakes widespread layoffs, moving the remaining 7,000 employees to “AI initiatives” and turning more managers into individual shareholders. This would bring the total number of those affected – whether laid off or assigned to a new role – to 20 percent of the current workforce, according to Reuters. I mentioned on monday. WIRED independently confirmed these reports. Some parts of the company have been told they won’t be affected at all.

But in recent days, employees preparing for the changes have been sharing checklists internally about benefits they can take advantage of, and are saving documents such as performance reviews and pay slips, according to one worker. Some teams meet at bars and restaurants near Meta’s offices in New York and Menlo Park on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to eat and drink to wash away their sorrows, several employees said. The management encouraged employees not to come to their offices on Wednesday.