Meta Joins Google & Microsoft With Voluntary Exit Plan; Offers Staff Up To 2.15 Months' Salary Per Year Of Service

Meta is negotiating a voluntary exit scheme for employees in France, joining Microsoft and Google in using buyouts to trim headcount.

What Meta is offering

According to La Lettre, staff who opt to leave would receive severance of 2.15 months' salary for every year of service. The package also includes up to ten months of paid mobility leave at 80 percent of gross salary.

Further support for retraining or starting a business is also under discussion.The terms are subject to a final agreement.

A collective process, not individual offers

Meta is reportedly using France's rupture conventionnelle collective (RCC), a collective contractual termination procedure. Negotiations began in July, unlike schemes where employees individually decide whether to accept a package.

The programme could cover around 100 employees at Meta's French operations, which employ roughly 300 people. Meta used a similar approach in France last year, when 88 employees chose to leave.

How Google and Microsoft compare

Microsoft announced a Voluntary Exit Offer on October 26 for about 60,000 eligible employees at level 70 and below in the US, India, the UK and Canada. That is more than a quarter of its 223,000-strong workforce. The offer follows the company's first-ever voluntary buyout in April, aimed at around 8,750 US employees. Microsoft expects 3,000 or fewer to accept, with a decision window running to early December.

Google has been offering voluntary exit packages since June to some staff in Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Switzerland. Accepting staff in Switzerland will receive one month's salary per year of service, capped at 12 months.