Meta stops offering remote work in new job postings as Mark Zuckerberg pushes the benefits of coming to the office

Meta has stopped offering remote work when it lists new jobs, at least for the time being.

Hiring managers have been told they can no longer post new jobs that list the work location as "remote" or outside of an existing office, two people familiar with the company told Insider. They asked not to be identified discussing private matters. 

The move is another sign that the company is drifting away from its previously friendly approach to remote-work. Other tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Snap, already have return-to-office mandates, despite outrage among some workers.   

While Meta continues to be in a broad hiring freeze that started last year and is set to lay off another 10,000 workers soon, it has hired some new employees in recent months. The company right now has about 300 open jobs globally, according to its careers website. And some parts of the company are already preparing to backfill positions deemed "critical" after the new round of layoffs is complete, another person familiar with the company said.

However, Meta is now reevaluating its approach to remote work, after allowing it since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The description of remote work on its jobs page has been changed. The line "Remote roles are now available in the US, Canada, and Europe, and we'll continue to add more roles in more locations as they become available" was deleted earlier this year, according to archived versions of the page. 

'It is still easier to build trust in person'

CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted as much in a recent note to employees, saying that although the company is "committed to distributed work," some internal analysis has shown that people who were hired to work remotely are less productive. No details of the analysis or how it was conducted were shared.

"This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week," Zuckerberg wrote. "This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively."

A spokesperson for Meta said the halt to remote jobs is "purely temporary" and part of the reorganization happening now. The spokesperson referred to Zuckerberg's public comments on remote work, adding: "Much like it has been since we safely returned to office, it's up to individual teams to decide how they want to manage in person office time." The company re-opened its offices to workers in March 2022.

In February of that year, Zuckerberg was much more bullish on the benefits of remote work. The company added a corporate principle called Live in the Future, which Zuckerberg said meant Meta would continue "operating as a distributed-first company."

There are other signs of Meta backtracking on remote work

Inside Meta, managers have been told since January that workers who were assigned an office when they were hired should start working from that location at least two days a week, one of the people familiar said. The Meta spokesperson said workers have been "encouraged" to do so, and there is no mandate. Internal applications from workers looking to move to another office location or to full-time remote work have also been paused, the people familiar said.

There were earlier signs that Meta was starting to move away from the very welcoming stance it initially took to remote work. The company has taken away a $1,100 stipend for Amazon purchases to aid remote work with items from an approved catalog, another person familiar with the company said. Although Meta is still allowing for up to $900 a year, or $75 per month, in coverage for home internet, the person said. Toward the end of last year, benefits and perks like the Life benefit were slashed, and a Lyft stipend was also taken away, as Insider reported.