Meta reportedly plans voluntary exits for a third of its 300 staff in France

Three hundred employees, about a hundred departures. According to La Lettre, which broke the story on November 4, followed by Les Échos, the French subsidiary of Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is finalizing a rupture conventionnelle collective (a collective voluntary redundancy agreement). It would target about a third of its workforce.

This mechanism of French labor law allows voluntary, compensated departures without economic layoffs. The agreement must be negotiated with employee representatives, then approved by the labor administration. The website Mac4Ever notes that the figures may still change before then. Meta has made no public announcement.

What the plan would include

Talks have reportedly been under way since July, according to La Lettre, cited by Next. Next reports the following terms: severance of 2.15 months of salary per year of service and a ten-month mobility leave paid at 80% of gross salary. The magazine Stratégies, for its part, headlines cuts to sales staff. The list of affected teams has not been confirmed.

This is not a first. In early 2024, an earlier collective voluntary redundancy agreement, signed with the works council (comité social et économique), already provided for up to 88 departures, when the subsidiary had 358 employees, The Media Leader reports.

Fewer employees, more data centers

The French plan would be part of the 8,000 job cuts worldwide, about 10% of the workforce, that Meta announced this year. The company has reorganized to focus on artificial intelligence: 7,000 employees have been reassigned and management layers reduced, with a stated productivity goal, Next recalls. According to Mac4Ever, these savings are meant to offset the company's AI spending. In its third-quarter results, Meta now expects between $135 billion and $145 billion in investments this year. At the end of October, Meta had also raised $37.5 billion to finance its data centers.

Mark Zuckerberg offers a different reading. In his manifesto on AI, Meta's chief executive argues that companies could become smaller but more numerous, without overall employment declining. He even says he is optimistic about an “abundance of jobs” in the future.

A trend that goes beyond Meta

Meta is not alone in cutting teams while investing in AI. Microsoft offered 60,000 employees the option to leave voluntarily, without ever mentioning AI, and Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs, citing it. For Meta France, three steps remain: signing the agreement, its approval by the labor administration, and then the actual count of volunteers.