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 Chief Executive Officer 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. Employees have been encouraged to use AI agents internally to help with writing code and other tasks.
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.
Other big tech companies are making cuts in the face of booming AI spending. Microsoft Corp. offered voluntary retirement to thousands of US 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.
Read Gale’s full memo below:
Over the last few weeks we have been working on some changes to our organization that will result in us laying off around 10% of the company on May 20, and closing about 6,000 open roles. Normally, we would want to nail down more details before communicating about this broadly, but since this has leaked, I want to share what I can right now. 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.
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. This is not an easy tradeoff and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here.
We will support those who are laid off with a generous severance package which, in the US, will include 16 weeks base pay plus two weeks for every year of employment. We will also cover the cost of COBRA health care coverage for US employees and their families for 18 months. Packages outside the US will be similar but vary by country, as will local timelines and processes. We will also offer career services to support people in finding another role, and immigration support for those who need it. We’ll share more of these details in a follow up post ahead of May 20.
For notifications, we will follow the same process we have before: on May 20, anyone who is impacted will receive an email to their work and personal accounts – please make sure your personal email is updated in Workday.
I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity which is incredibly unsettling. We will try to answer your questions here in the comments but as we’re still working through the details we aren’t able to share much more until later in May. Meanwhile, you can find more information on the People Portal which includes our standard FAQs and logistical details for layoffs.
