Reading through the comments I see a couple of recurring themes. For what a quiet layoff means, that's easy. All these companies have a performance review syst

Reading through the comments I see a couple of recurring themes. For what a quiet layoff means, that's easy. All these companies have a performance review system. Employees are effectively stack ranked. Facebook in particular has a target of 10-15% in subpar ratings. These are ratings below MA (Meets All Expectations) including MM (Meets Most), MN (Meets None) and NRL (Non-Regrettable Loss ie an employee who quits that they don't want back). This is the tech equivalent of IBM or GE firing the bottom 10% of staff every year. So all you do is you get aggressive about PIPs and forcing those subpar ratings out. That's how a quiet layoff will work here. The second theme is who will this affect. It's naive to think the answer is "low performers". I don't think the young will bear the brunt of this either. Young workers are as a general rule cheaper. Diversity will inevitably enter the picture. jAs a whole, people who good for whatever diversity metrics the company cares about will be forced out less often than those who aren't. It's actually older workers who will bear the brunt of this as age (ie in the US being over 40 is a protected classs by law) is not a diversity metric I've seen any tech company cares about. Don't bleieve me? Go look at your company's diversity policy. It'll mention specific protected classes. See if age is one of them. As always, leaf nodes in the org chart and some low level managers will pay the price for poor leadership right up to the executive level. Nobody cares about the metaverse. It's a strategy from a company that has no idea what it should be doing.