Report: Meta and Microsoft Plan Layoffs

Tech giants Meta and Microsoft are reportedly cutting back on their headcount.

Meta is set to cut its workforce by 5%, while Microsoft plans to pause hiring in part of its consulting business and plans to lay off some employees, CNBC reported Tuesday (Jan. 14).

Neither Meta nor Microsoft immediately replied to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Meta plans to cut about 5% of its “low performers,” one CNBC report said, citing two internal messages from company executives. The company has more than 72,000 employees.

The employees affected by these layoffs will be notified by Feb. 10, according to the report.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in one of the memos, per the report: “Meta is working on building some of the most important technologies of the world. AI, glasses as the next computing platform and the future of social media. This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams.”

Microsoft plans to pause hiring in part of its U.S. consulting business and said last week that it would lay off less than 1% of its workforce, according to another CNBC report that cited an internal memo.

The hiring pause is part of the Microsoft consulting division’s efforts to manage costs, according to the report. Those efforts also include instructions to use remote sessions instead of travel for internal meetings, to have executives authorize trips to customers’ sites, and to make 35% cuts in marketing and nonbillable external resource spend.

According to Layoffs.fyi, a tracker that monitors job cuts in the tech sector, 545 tech companies laid off a total of 152,664 employees in 2024.

Those figures were down from the 1,193 tech companies that laid off 264,220 employees in 2023 and the 1,064 tech companies that laid off 165,269 employees in 2022, according to the site.

It was reported in October that Meta fired around two dozen staffers for misusing their meal credits amid a wider series of layoffs at the company. The staff members had been using $25 meal credits to purchase various household items, the Financial Times reported.