Meta has begun notifying thousands of employees worldwide that they are being laid off as part of a major restructuring exercise aimed at improving efficiency and reducing costs while the company increases investment in artificial intelligence.
The layoffs began in Singapore, where affected employees received e-mails at around 4am local time on May 20. Workers in Britain, the United States and other countries were expected to receive notifications according to their respective time zones.
Employees were also encouraged to work from home while the company proceeded with plans to eliminate about 8,000 positions globally.
Engineering and product teams among hardest hit
According to sources familiar with the company’s plans, the latest round of job cuts is expected to affect Meta’s engineering and product divisions most significantly.
The sources also indicated that additional layoffs could take place later in 2026.
In a memo circulated on May 18, Meta said around 7,000 employees had been reassigned to newly created teams focused on AI-related initiatives, including AI products and agents.
The company had just under 80,000 employees at the end of March, before the reassignments and layoffs began.
Meta’s head of people, Janelle Gale, said the restructuring was intended to create flatter organisational structures with smaller and faster-moving teams.
“We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding,” Gale said in the memo reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Zuckerberg prioritises AI expansion
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has made artificial intelligence Meta’s top priority as the company races to keep pace with competitors such as Google and OpenAI.
Meta has committed more than US$100 billion in AI capital expenditure for 2026 alone.
The company has already undergone several rounds of layoffs in recent years as Zuckerberg pushed for greater operational efficiency.
He has encouraged engineers to use AI agents for coding and other tasks, while also outlining plans to track employee devices to improve AI systems.
Zuckerberg has additionally spent time developing his own AI-powered assistant to help manage certain chief executive responsibilities, including collecting employee feedback.
Employee concerns and investor worries grow
The changes have reportedly left many Meta employees feeling anxious and frustrated.
More than a thousand workers have signed a petition addressed to Zuckerberg and other company leaders, urging Meta not to collect data from employee devices for AI training purposes.
The petition raised concerns over the possible collection of detailed information such as keystrokes, mouse movements and screen content.
Some employees have also shared concerns on social media about how fears of layoffs have affected morale and workplace performance.
Meta’s aggressive spending on AI has meanwhile raised concerns among investors, who remain uncertain whether the investments will deliver long-term returns.
Although the company has described the layoffs as a way to offset some AI-related costs, analysts at Evercore estimated the cuts would generate savings of only about US$3 billion.
That figure represents only a small portion of Meta’s projected capital expenditure for 2026, which could reach US$145 billion, alongside hundreds of billions more expected to be spent on AI infrastructure before the end of the decade.
