[PragmaticPulp]

Doing one perfect layoff that hits the exact target is ideal in theory, but it's really hard to do at this scale. Meta is so big that it can take many months to sort through everything. Logistically, a couple rounds of layoffs can make more sense than trying to force it all to happen at once.

There's also a big risk of cutting too deep. If you try to downsize the company to hit some gloomy economic outlook that turns out to be too pessimistic, you might have to rapidly rehire. It can be better to make a few incremental changes to the company with some time to reassess in between.

So yes: One, single, perfect layoff is ideal. But the real world isn't ideal. The real ideal would have been to not overhire in the first place, but everyone is trying to hit a moving target with the economy and the job market.

Rolling layoffs are terrible, though. My last company would do seemingly random layoffs every other week for months on end. Orgs would change, spend a few weeks trying to get things back on track with whoever was left, then layoffs would rearrange the company again. Meta is at least being precise about implementations and timing.

[rootusrootus]

> My last company would do seemingly random layoffs every other week for months on end.

This sounds like my current company. Only a few truly announced layoffs, but every few weeks we quietly lose another round of people, usually entire teams. The rest of us are split between hoping to be in the next round, and just jumping ship.