'Scarlet Letter on Our Backs': Meta Says Its Job Cuts Targeted 'Low Performers,' But Some Terminated Workers Have a 'Solid' Track Record Job cuts affected about 3,600 Meta employees globally.

Meta began layoffs for U.S. workers at 5 a.m. PT on Monday, letting workers know if they were still employed via emails. The job cuts affected 5% of Meta's 72,000-person global workforce, or about 3,600 employees, and were framed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a way to move out low performers at the company.

However, a new report from Business Insider found some affected workers had a track record of high achievement, performing well in their 2024 midyear reviews before suddenly being downgraded to a lower tier in Meta's 2024 year-end performance review system.

Business Insider interviewed eight laid-off employees who told the outlet that they received mid-level "At or Above Expectations" ratings on their midyear 2024 assessments but were pushed down to "Meets Most," a lower-level rating, for their 2024 year-end performance reviews. The lower rating caused them to be fired on Monday.

Related: Meta Informs Staff that Layoffs Will Begin Monday Morning in a Now-Leaked Internal Memo

Internal guidance sent to Meta managers in January from Hillary Champion, Meta's director of people development growth programs, told managers to bring employees from higher performance categories into lower performance tiers to meet targets. Managers had to ensure that 12% to 15% of their team was grouped in the "Meets Most" or below categories, making them eligible for layoffs.

Terminated employees with steady histories of high performance were shocked when they got the email on Monday.

"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," a terminated Meta employee told BI.

^{Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

Other laid-off employees posted their past performance reports to Workplace, Meta's internal platform, with one affected worker stating that they met or exceeded expectations for four years before being pushed down to "Meets Most" in late 2024.

Another worker said they suddenly dropped two rating levels from "Exceeds Expectations" in their midyear 2024 assessments to "Meets Most" for their 2024 year-end review without any manager feedback about why they had been downgraded.

Related: Meta Reminds Staff of Its Strict No-Leaks Policy — That Has Since Been Leaked to the Press

These terminated employees question Meta's public stance that the layoffs only affected low performers and say that the company could damage the reputations of affected employees as they look for new work.

"The hardest part is Meta publicly stating they're cutting low performers, so it feels like we have the scarlet letter on our backs," one affected employee told BI. "People need to know we're not underperformers."

"Now people have to go back out into the job market with a label that is incredibly unfair," another Meta employee previously told BI.