Meta to cut thousands of jobs in first wave of layoffs

Meta intends to conduct a first wave of sweeping layoffs planned for this year on May 20, with more coming later, according to three sources familiar with the plans.

The Facebook and Instagram owner will lay off about 10% of its global workforce, or close to 8,000 employees, in that initial round, one of the sources said, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.

The company is planning further layoffs in the second half of the year, the three sources said, although details of those cuts, including timing and size, have not yet been finalized. Executives may adjust their plans as they monitor developments in artificial intelligence capabilities, the sources added.

Reuters reported last month that the company was planning to lay off 20% or more of its global workforce.

Meta declined to comment on the timing or scope of the planned cuts.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is investing hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence as he seeks to significantly reshape the company’s internal structure around the technology, reflecting a broader trend among major U.S. companies this year, particularly in the tech sector.

Amazon.com has similarly trimmed 30,000 corporate employees in recent months, representing nearly 10% of its white-collar workforce, while fintech company Block cut nearly half of its staff in February. In both cases, executives linked the reductions to efficiency gains driven by artificial intelligence.

Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking global tech job cuts, reported that 73,212 employees have lost their jobs so far this year. For all of 2024, the figure stood at 153,000.

Meta’s planned layoffs this year would mark its most significant restructuring since the late 2022 and early 2023 period it called its “year of efficiency,” when it eliminated about 21,000 jobs. At that time, Meta’s stock was in steep decline and the company was correcting for pandemic-era growth expectations that proved unsustainable.

The company is now in a stronger financial position, but executives are aiming for a future with fewer management layers and greater efficiency driven by AI-assisted work.

Meta’s shares are up 3.68% since the start of the year, although they remain below a record high reached last summer. Last year, the company generated more than $200 billion in revenue and posted a $60 billion profit, despite heavy spending on artificial intelligence.

Menlo Park, California-based Meta employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31, according to its latest filing.

In recent weeks, Meta has reorganized teams within its Reality Labs division and shifted engineers from across the company into a new “Applied AI” organization tasked with accelerating the development of AI agents capable of writing code and performing complex tasks autonomously.

One of the sources said some employees would also be transferred into Meta Small Business, a unit created last month, as part of the broader restructuring.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev