Meta to layoff nearly 8,000 employees globally in May
Meta, the folks behind social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Threads, is reportedly preparing to cut almost 8,000 jobs worldwide from 20 May onwards. This is also set to only the be first in a string of layoffs hitting the company this year.
As reported by Reuters, Meta Platforms is expected to lay off about 10% of its global workforce in its May layoffs. Additional layoffs are also being considered for the second half of the year, although the exact timing and scale of those cuts have yet to be finalised. Meta currently employs close to 79,000 staff as of 31 December last year.
The move comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues to push aggressive investments into AI, committing hundreds of billions of dollars toward focusing Meta around it. This reflects a wider trend across major U.S. tech companies focusing on efficiency gains powered by AI; Amazon just recently trimmed 30,000 corporate employees, close to 10% of their office staff. Layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi estimates that over 73,000 tech employees have already lost their jobs this year.
If the 20 May layoffs does go through, this would be the Zuck’s biggest layoff since early 2023, when 21,000 Meta stuff were cut after post-Covid over-expansion. There’s no financial pressure around the upcoming layoffs however, as Meta simply wants to focus on a leaner workforce with increased reliance on AI instead.
This has already seen a lot of reshuffling of staff within Meta, with engineers focusing on a new ‘Applied AI’ division developing AI agents tasked with writing and executing code. Some employees are also expected to be reassigned to Meta Small Business, a newly formed unit created as part of the company’s broader organisational reshuffle earlier this year.
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