The source said that Meta issued an "ultimatum" to managers: increase personal output or leave.

According to reports in the morning of February 8, Beijing time, Meta Platforms is asking many managers and executives within the company to increase output, and the company requires these managers to transition to positions that can make personal contributions, otherwise they will need to leave the company. Currently, Meta is trying to improve its own work efficiency.

The transition is internally known as "Flattening", according to people familiar with the matter. Senior executives will share the directive with their subordinates in the coming weeks, separate from the company's ongoing regular performance reviews, according to people familiar with the matter. Individual contributors are not responsible for managing other employees, but focus on coding, design, and research tasks.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, laid off about 13 per cent of its employees in the first round of mass layoffs in November.

In the months that followed, employees felt strong anxiety about possible layoffs in the future, the source said. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) explained in this month's results that he still thinks the company's growth is too slow and the team is too bloated. He called 2023 the "year of efficiency" and decided to cut middle managers and underperforming projects.

Sources revealed that this round of layoffs will be more gradual, on an individual basis. Given that the organization includes teams that compete to achieve similar goals, as well as managers who supervise only one or two employees, these people say. Some Meta employees said they felt the change was necessary.

Meta declined to comment.

Zuckerberg's downsizing plan helped the company's share price recover from the collapse in 2022, its worst year ever. So far this year, it has risen by more than 56%.