Meta joins Microsoft and Google in offering voluntary exits to employees
The tech industry has laid off thousands of workers in the past few months, and now voluntary exits are starting to gain popularity. Meta has reportedly joined Microsoft and Google in asking employees to leave voluntarily with a hefty severance package.
As per a report from French publication, La Lettre, the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm is giving voluntary exit options (VEOs) to its employees in France. The report states that Meta has 300 employees in France, with this plan likely impacting about 100 workers. Though the roles affected remain unclear.
But unlike Microsoft or Google, where employees can make this call individually, this plan is reportedly based on a collective contractual termination procedure. A collective contractual termination procedure or RCC in French, is a labour law mechanism that allows a company to negotiate a voluntary reduction in headcount with trade unions.
Employees who want to be part of this plan have to submit their applications by November 5, the report said. It is also unknown if Meta, which has about 66,000 workers globally, would bring such an exit offer to other regions.
Meta had previously reached a collective contractual termination agreement in France in 2023, which was expected to result in the departure of 88 employees from the subsidiary's workforce of about 350 at the time.Metaβs severance package for employees
The proposed collective contractual termination procedure, the report added, has been in negotiations since July. Under Meta's proposed terms, employees would be offered 2.15 months of salary for every year of service. They would also receive 10 months of mobility leave paid at 80 per cent of their gross salary.
Meta is reportedly also considering support for professional retraining or starting a business.
If accurate, this would likely make the offer one of the more generous severances that we have seen. Earlier this week, though, Canva gave a hefty severance package for 1,271 laid-off employees, which included free MacBooks and LinkedIn Premium.
The reported plan comes as major technology companies reorganise their workforces while increasing investment in AI. Google has extended voluntary exit offers to employees in five countries, including France, while Microsoft has announced a buyout programme covering 60,000 eligible employees in the US, Canada, India and the UK.
The proposal also follows a broader round of workforce reductions at Meta. In April, the company announced plans to eliminate about 8,000 positions, representing 10 per cent of its global workforce. In May, the company decided to reassign 7,000 employees to functions connected with AI. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously stated that AI now allows projects that previously required large teams to be completed by one person.
Meta expects capital expenditure of between $135 billion and $145 billion in 2026, mainly for digital infrastructure and data centres. It is also doubling down on personal AI agents with Muse.- EndsAlso Read | Google asks employees to leave voluntarily, offers severance packages in 5 countriesAlso Read | Microsoft offers to buy out 60,000 employees in India and 3 more countries, read full memo hereAlso Read | Canva layoffs: From free MacBooks to LinkedIn Premium, here is all laid-off employees are getting
Armaan loves to keep an eye on everything happening in the world of tech and AI. You will find him testing new gadgets, exploring the latest LLMs and making sense of the emerging tech. When not working around tech, he will be exploring new music or catching up on motorsport or aviation.
