Meta layoffs may begin today at WhatsApp and Instagram — employees' anxiety peaks in India

Another employee, who did not want to be named, cited that the above-said staffers at lower levels shall face the axe this week while those in leadership positions like business heads will be affected next week. This source also indicated that layoffs at the Facebook and Instagram parent company will will close by early next week.

CNBC-TV18 spoke to several other Meta employees in India who said the buzz about layoffs has been there since the start of April but there has been no official communication as of April 18 (11 pm IST).

However, in an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post, Meta’s head of human resources, Lori Goler, wrote Tuesday evening that the company will begin notifying employees on its technical teams whose jobs are being cut.

An employee in India said, “Meta is known for giving layoff notices early in the morning. So, it can be that we might get it early in the morning, or if they follow the PST then it might happen around the afternoon.”

CNBC-TV18 is awaiting a response from Meta for confirmation and the detailed impact of the latest layoffs round.

A verified Twitter user by the name of Randall Bennett, who claims to be an engineer at Meta, tweeted that the "word on the street is it'll be Wednesday, but only zucc knows." He, however, seems to have deleted the tweet later.

Another user by the name Mengdi Chen (unverified) posted on April 14, “If nothing unexpected happens, Meta will release the second round of layoff list of the Tech department next week. Compared with the previous layoff, I would feel more disappointed if I were laid off this time and couldn't complete the projects at hand.”

Meta is also poised to announce newly reorganised teams and management hierarchies as the social media giant seeks to become leaner and more efficient.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, earlier in March, declared 2023 the “year of efficiency” for the firm. His remarks came following two rounds of job cuts in the past six months. Last month, the firm announced it would implement another 10,000 job cuts after it laid off 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of the company workforce, last November.

Interactions on Blind suggest that travel restrictions were put in place for this week and that previously layoffs were done on Wednesdays, which is why users believe cuts will begin today.

According to The Washington Post, Goler has said divisions that will be affected include teams working on Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and the virtual-reality division Reality Labs among others. She advised some employees to not go into the office if it wasn’t critical for their role, according to the memo. Layoff decisions were made by senior leaders as part of the wider restructuring effort, she added.

Apart from the layoff anxiety, employees at Meta are also facing what is being called the “morale crisis.” Multiple reports suggest that several of Meta's senior executives have relocated and are now running significant portions of the Silicon Valley corporation from their new residences in cities like Tel Aviv, Israel, and London.

Meanwhile, other employees are being "urged" to come back to the office. While not "strictly" necessary, the unspoken implications have been that if one is not in the office they could be part of the next layoff, reports say.

According to nine current and former employees as well as texts reviewed by The New York Times, the layoffs and absentee leadership, together with worries that Zuckerberg is placing a poor bet on the future, have severely damaged staff morale at Meta.