Meta employees criticize Mark Zuckerberg's second round of layoffs in an internal forum: 'you've shattered the morale and confidence in leadership,' report says

• Meta's second round of layoffs, expected to affect 10,000 staff, began Wednesday.
• Employees criticized Mark Zuckerberg and other managers on internal company forums, per Reuters.

Meta employees criticized Mark Zuckerberg on an internal company forum after Wednesday's layoffs, Reuters reported.

The Instagram and Facebook parent-company last month announced a second round of layoffs that would see 10,000 staff lose their jobs; some of those Meta workers found out who was laid off on Wednesday.

The layoffs were the most popular topic of discussion on an internal company forum, which was posted ahead of an upcoming town hall meeting for staff, per the news agency.

"You've shattered the morale and confidence in leadership of many high performers who work with intensity," said one question seen by Reuters. "Why should we stay at Meta?"

That post appears to reference a Zuckerberg directive from last July in which he said: "This is a period that demands more intensity, and I expect us to get more done with fewer resources," Insider's Kali Hays reported.

Meta started its mass layoffs in November, cutting 13% of its staff. Some managers and directors that stayed on, were then asked to either move to a non-management role or quit. Last month, he announced the second set of layoffs that would impact another 10,000 workers.

In over a dozen LinkedIn posts on Wednesday, staff said they'd been hit by the cuts as part of its so-called "Year of Efficiency," per Insider's Grace Dean. Those affected included technical program managers, machine learning engineers, and UX researchers.

Last month, outspoken Silicon Valley investor Keith Rabois, said Google and Meta over-hired thousands of staff who did "fake work."

"All these people were extraneous, this has been true for a long time, the vanity metric of hiring employees was this false god in some ways," he said.

One Meta employee laid off in the first round said the company paid her not to work and was "hoarding us like Pokémon cards."

But management experts told Insider's Rebecca Knight that Meta's second round of layoffs could harm employee morale.

"They're constantly wondering, 'Is there another round coming? Am I next?'" said Kerry Sulkowicz, the managing principal of the Boswell Group, which advises CEOs and boards on people and culture issues.

Meta did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.