Meta plans to cut 10% of workers, or roughly 8,000 employees, in
The company disclosed the move in a memo sent to employees Thursday, saying the layoffs will come on May 20. Meta also won't hire workers for 6,000 open roles that it had intended to fill.
The job cuts come as CEO Mark Zuckerberg is spending aggressively on the talent and infrastructure needed to develop state-of-the-art artificial intelligence products, including large language models and chatbots. Meta already projected record capital expenditures this year, and has announced several multibillion-dollar deals with AI partners over the past few months.
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Meta alluded to its AI spending in the memo, which was written by Janelle Gale, chief people officer. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," she wrote in the note, which was reviewed by Bloomberg.
Meta employees have spent much of the year fretting about job cuts, which already hit the Reality Labs division and other teams. Gale said that the company was announcing the layoffs early since details of the plan had already leaked. Reuters first reported on Meta's planned workforce reductions earlier this month.
"I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," Gale wrote.
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Other big tech companies are making cuts in the face of booming AI spending. Microsoft offered voluntary retirement to thousands of U.S. employees on Thursday.
Meta had almost 79,000 employees at the start of the year. The company is scheduled to report first quarter earnings next week.
