Meta is experiencing an unprecedented decline in employee morale, coinciding with plans to lay off nearly 8,000 staff on May 20. A combination of factors, including widening pay disparities, forced transfers of engineers to the AI division, and mandatory monitoring of employee activity on corporate laptops, has fostered a bleak atmosphere within the company. Sixteen current and former employees from various departments described the environment as overwhelmingly negative, with one Instagram employee stating, "everyone is unhappy except for the management."
Amid this turmoil, many staff members are hoping to qualify for layoffs in order to receive a minimum severance package of 16 weeks pay and 18 months of health insurance. These layoffs are set to add to the approximately 25,000 job cuts over the past four years. It appears that only those with the best compensation packages and positions directly involved in AI development are thriving.
For the second consecutive year, Meta has reduced the proportion of annual bonuses paid in stock, cutting it by 5% in February after a previous 10% reduction last year. The median total compensation for employees has decreased from $417,400 in 2024 to $388,200, while company stocks have lost about 5% over the past year. Nevertheless, Meta reported nearly $27 billion in profits for the first quarter, with total expenses rising 35% year-on-year to $33.4 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also raised forecasts for capital expenditures to a range of $125–145 billion, while offering some top AI researchers compensation packages as high as $100 million annually.
In conjunction with the layoff announcements, the company implemented a mandatory program called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI) on corporate laptops, which tracks employee keystrokes and clicks to train AI models. Employees are unable to opt out of this program, and discontent has surfaced, with some employees facing humiliation from management when voicing their concerns. Recently, protesters have distributed flyers in U.S. offices urging their colleagues to sign a petition to end the monitoring program, which has not been rolled out outside the U.S. due to stricter privacy regulations.
Last month, Meta mandated that at least 1,000 lead engineers be transferred to the Applied AI Engineering division, threatening those who refused with termination. In the UK, some employees have started gathering signatures to form a union in collaboration with the United Tech & Allied Workers organization.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that AI is changing work dynamics, with projects that once took months and required dozens of employees now completed by one or two individuals in a week. Reports suggest that vice presidents are also being evaluated based on the level of automation achieved in their departments. A former employee cited AI directives as a significant contributor to the decline in morale.
Meanwhile, the TBD Lab, responsible for advanced AI models, remains insulated from the chaos, with a senior Meta executive describing the situation as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, albeit recognizing that entire departments may soon find automation to be more efficient than human labor. The only advice from the HR department to employees has been to ensure their personal email addresses are up to date and to brace for what’s ahead.
This situation at Meta raises concerns about the overall health of the labor market in the tech industry, as competitors may exploit the opportunity to attract talent disillusioned by such corporate practices.
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