The moral dilemma: freelancers seeking work at Meta amid recent controversial “low performance” job cuts
SPECIAL REPORT
Meta, the tech giant with a $1.86 trillion market cap behind platform brands including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has served a wave of layoffs that has rattled the nerves of tech talent the world over.
These job cuts, initially framed as a response to low employee performance, have raised concerns about the treatment of workers and the ethical implications of such mass job cuts, especially for workers who were on medical, maternity or parental leave.
For freelancers looking to secure work on Meta’s platforms or any other company that makes what many see as unethical job cuts, this situation creates a complex moral dilemma: should they align themselves with a company that has been criticised for its treatment of employees or is it a matter of separating business from ethics to pay the bills?
Tech layoffs: are they getting cold and nasty?
Meta is not alone in making significant workforce reductions. Job cuts seem to be a la mode for tech titans. A trend that started back in late 2022 and early 2023 and could continue far into 2025.
Companies including Google, Amazon, and Twitter laid off thousands of employees in response to a changing economic period of uncertainty. Twitter/X, under Elon Musk’s leadership, saw redundancies affecting about half of its workforce in 2022. Amazon followed suit, cutting over 18,000 jobs in 2023 as part of a broader restructuring effort. Google, too, shed thousands of employees, with a focus on streamlining operations and focusing on key business priorities.
Intel and Dell have also made massive cuts. In August 2024, Intel announced it was laying off over 15,000 employees and would stop all “non-essential work.” Dell reportedly laid off 12,500 employees to “boost AI Pivot.”
Others are also making sweeping layoffs in 2025. Reuters reported this month that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin announced in an “all-hands call” there would be company-wide layoffs of “about 10 per cent” of its employees to cut costs and ramp up rocket launches.
The layoffs could affect roughly 1,400 of the company’s nearly 14,000 employees – mostly concentrated in Florida, Texas and Washington. The news comes as Blue Origin starts production of its giant New Glenn rocket, which had its first long-awaited debut launch last month.
At the end of January 2025, it was reported that ST Micro was considering cutting 3000 staff following a slump in chip demand. IT consulting major Infosys Limited is also in the process of laying off 400 trainees after they failed evaluation tests in three consecutive attempts, reported Moneycontrol, citing people aware of the development.
These large-scale redundancies and the mass restructuring of companies have shifted public perception of tech giants. While tech companies once held a reputation for providing stable, well-compensated work with generous benefits, the current trend of layoffs suggests that no job, even in the tech sector, is truly secure.
This reality has profound implications for freelancers seeking work. As more companies cut back on their workforce, it’s natural to wonder whether the long-term prospects of working with such companies are worth the risk. The question becomes: should freelancers, who often have more flexibility than traditional employees, align themselves with companies that are making headlines for their controversial redundancy practices?
Zuck’s newfound ‘masculine energy’ is becoming collateral damage.
-Elana S, former Meta product legal counsel
But back to Meta. The company cut approximately 11,000 jobs in 2023, a move that was portrayed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg as part of a strategic focus on “efficiency.” These decisions, often framed as necessary for survival during uncertain times, have been met with significant backlash from both former employees and the general public.
Within 18 months, companies such as Meta could no longer see the need for human mid-level engineers. When the AI investment and testing have been signed off, what will be the buzzword then now that “efficiency” and “low performance” have already been used? It won’t just be a matter of redundancy but rather “human redundancy” once the AI models take over.
Plus, the latest “low performance” corporate justification by Meta does not match the balance sheet. It’s looking more like DeepSeek spooked Zuckerberg. And he is not alone. AI is the latest golden ticket and the tech heavyweights are throwing all their hopes and money into it at the peril of livelihoods.
When job losses start to add up. When people miss mortgage payments and people can’t find jobs, families break down. Divorces happen.
With so many private and public sector job losses The Making America Great Again mantra isn’t looking so good for President Trump’s tech cronies or as NBC News coined them: tech’s right-wing brotherhood.
Don’t get me wrong, clamping down on incidents of federal benefit fraud is one thing. That type of waste should be stopped as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE has set out to do. However, not even considering how US federal employees could be transitioned to other departments, even newly devised departments, rather than just being let go and denied access to their files is not going to be good for the economy or America’s collective mental health.
What’s really going on at Meta according to “low performers”
What has added to the complexity of the situation is the framing of these job cuts. Meta, in particular, referred to some of these employees as “low performers,” a label that many critics argue unfairly stigmatises those let go. The term “low performer” often fails to capture the nuances of individual contributions, and in the case of Meta, the redundancies were widespread, cutting across multiple departments, including those not traditionally associated with underperformance. This raises questions about the real motivations behind the cuts—were they financially driven, or was the language of performance used to justify difficult decisions?
In an internal Meta memo according to several news reports, Zuckerberg stated:
I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster. This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our team.
Meta spun the subsequent layoffs as restructuring, a necessary step towards 2025 growth.
But the so-called “low performers” weren’t buying it. They felt the label was unfair and undeserved. Some, like Kaila Curry, a former Meta Content Manager, suspected a different motive.
“This wasn’t about performance; it was about workforce reduction in favour of AI initiatives,” Curry stated on LinkedIn, pointing out her own “exceeds expectations” mid-year review. She even hinted at a possible connection to her vocal opposition to Meta’s YA content shift, which she felt compromised LGBTQ+ users.
Rebecca Cassity, a Senior Content Designer on Meta’s Trust and Privacy team, echoed the sentiment. “My last annual review at Meta was glowing – I earned an Exceeds Expectations rating,” she said, further fuelling the suspicion that the “low performance” narrative was simply a convenient cover for a deeper strategic shift and cost-cutting exercise.
In a LinkedIn post, Cassity wrote: “So, after 3.5 years, to suddenly be laid off and labelled a “low performer” stings. And as the Content Designer on privacy for Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Wearables I led a number of top-priority, high-impact projects, even in the days leading up to the layoffs.
“Things like:
- Writing privacy disclosures for millions of users
- Developing mocks that allowed product, legal, policy, and leadership to align on privacy strategy
- Working with cross-Meta teams to align on sensitive language”
Now looking for work, she said in the post, “But I still love content design. Drop me a line if you want to geek out on any content quandaries, or if you have any leads for my next role.”
Elana S, a former Meta product legal counsel expressed on LinkedIn that when he was laid off she was “blindsided”.
“I had never previously received a review below “Meets All” my 3+ years at Meta, and I was on maternity leave for 6 months until November. It is very hard to believe that – despite Meta indicating my expectations are prorated – I did not do enough. Many laid off today seem to have similar stories – a history of good performance, and a recent leave of absence.”
For Elena, Meta was her first in-house job, and it was “trial by fire”. She said that she and her team launched a product line in her first month working at Meta. During her time at Meta she said she “learned to be nimble and resilient, provide business-focused, risk-calibrated advice, and how to be a great XFN partner.”
She continued, “Even when I disagreed with product direction or was disappointed by Meta in the news, my clients and colleagues kept me energized! I have never worked in a place where every person I work with is someone I would be friends with outside of work. Reality Labs Legal is a family – I am grateful for you & I will miss working with you! Please don’t be strangers. Getting laid off isn’t catching! The best thing you can do to help me now is speak up publicly for the kind of attorney and colleague I am, and the value of the work we did together!”
I had never previously received a review below “Meets All” my 3+ years at Meta, and I was on maternity leave for 6 months until November. It is very hard to believe that – despite Meta indicating my expectations are prorated – I did not do enough. Many laid off today seem to have similar stories – a history of good performance, and a recent leave of absence.
–Elana S, former Meta product legal counsel
However, all was not rosy for Elana at Meta. Here’s what Elena said she wouldn’t miss: “My career trajectory being completely at the whim of product decisions I have no control over, mental overload, 34-page one-pagers, having 62 tabs open, deprecating beloved products because they weren’t “moonshot” enough for Zuck.
She added, “Zuck’s newfound ‘masculine energy’ is becoming ‘collateral damage’.”
Elena said her LinkedIn post “blew up” in a way she never expected, and added:
“I’m not mad Meta laid me off. I’m mad they decided to call it performance-based. I would have never had to defend myself like this, had they chosen different messaging. I have nothing but good things to say about most of my time there and my colleagues.”
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Freelancers and the Moral Dilemma
For freelancers looking to secure work on Meta’s platforms, the situation is particularly tricky. Freelancers often rely on big tech companies like Meta for a significant portion of their income and a notch on their CV belt. The platform offers job opportunities in various fields, including marketing, content creation, software development, and more. Many people love working there because the people they work with are amazing.
But do the recent redundancies, combined with the broader tech industry’s cost-cutting trends, put freelancers in an awkward position? Will they be welcomed by Meta staffers?
Freelancers, unlike full-time employees, don’t benefit from the same job security or stability. While their role on Meta may seem somewhat detached from the corporate culture or employment policies of the company, the reality is that many freelancers are affected by the same corporate environment.
The recent wave of redundancies, particularly those targeting employees deemed “low performers,” raises an uncomfortable question: how can freelancers reconcile their need for work with their concerns about the ethical implications of doing business with a company that may arguably not have the best interests of their employees or their product users?
Money v. ethics
The need for financial stability is often the driving force behind freelancing decisions. For many, the prospect of securing a high-paying contract on Meta’s platforms can be too appealing to turn down, especially when other job opportunities might not be as lucrative. However, working with a company that has been accused of mishandling workforce ethics can leave freelancers in an ethical bind. By accepting work on Meta, some but not all freelancers may feel they are inadvertently endorsing practices they find questionable or unfair.
Plus, the stigma attached to being labelled a “low performer” in such a large company can linger. Freelancers may question the fairness of the evaluation system Meta uses, wondering if it accurately reflects individual talent or if it’s more about cost-cutting measures and shifting blame.
This could complicate their decision to engage with the company, as they may feel they are supporting a corporate culture that devalues employees. But then again, when do salaried tech staff fight for freelancer fairness? Would we see Meta staff having a moral dilemma if thousands of freelancers were “let go” rather than themselves?
Tech hiring updates
Scrolling through redundancy announcements makes for depressing reading. However, some tech companies still have job openings. But the safest bet so far seems to be Nvidia, which has 30,000 employees, 1,372 job openings and hasn’t had a “redundancy event” in the past two years.
Meta has 1,253 open jobs. This ranks #15 for most open jobs among all tech companies. Only 103 Meta jobs are listed as open to remote (8.2% of all jobs). However, most of those job postings are more than 20 days old, according to Trueup. Have those jobs been scrapped?
How do you balance ethics and opportunity?
Freelancers must weigh the moral dilemma of accepting work with companies such as Meta against the need for short-term financial security and career advancement.
Ultimately, the decision is a personal one, and it’s up to each freelancer to decide where they draw the line between ethical concerns and career opportunities. They know their time there would be limited anyway given the nature of being a contractor.
That said, while the redundancy wave is arguably a reflection of both broader economic forces, a share of shareholder greed, and the fight to dominate AI, it’s clear that freelancers must be increasingly mindful of the companies they choose to work with and the ethical considerations that may arise from those decisions.
Be ready with a response in your next interview if a competing tech company asks about how you felt about Meta’s “low performance” layoffs. That is one loaded question. Perhaps a pair of Ray-Ban Meta sunglasses will give you the answer.
