News site Insider has quoted Facebook employees confirming that as many as 15% of company’s workforce could be slashed within few weeks. An insider suggests, managers at Mark Zuckerberg’s firm have been told to select at least 15% of their teams who are categorized as “needs support.”

New York Post report says, Facebook employees took to the workplace app Blind, where they speculated that it was likely that whoever was placed in the 30-day ‘needs support’ list would be out of a job. The absolute figure is being pegged at 12,000.

Employees who ‘needs support’ are perceived to be falling under the category of failing to meet performance goals. These employees are then subjected to new requirements under a “performance improvement plan” (PIP) — which is seen as a precursor to losing one’s job.

According to Insider, Facebook’s chief engineer, Maher Saba, told managers in July that they needed to start identifying employees in their teams who fell into the category of “needs support” — though they did not specify a percentage.

Those who are “PIP-ed” need to look elsewhere for work, the report quoted a source,“it might look like they are moving on, but the reality is they are being forced out.” 

Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that the company has frozen new hiring and blamed economic headwinds. He even warned, the company may be forced to undergo downsizing or restructuring.

“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg told Bloomberg News.

Zuckerberg said Meta would be slashing budgets across all of its departments and subsidiaries, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

While Facebook maintains a dominant position in the mobile advertising market, serious questions have been raised as to whether it can continue to grow — particularly in the face of fierce competition from ByteDance’s TikTok.