Meta plans first wave of 8,000 layoffs on May 20

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

The Facebook and Instagram owner will lay off about 10% of its global workforce, or close to 8,000 employees, in thatinitial round, one of the sources said.

The company is planning further layoffs in the second half of the year, the three sources said, although details of thosecuts, including date and size, were not yet settled. Executives may adjust their plans as they observe developments inartificial intelligence capabilities, the sources added. Reuters reported last month that the company was planning to layoff 20% or more of its global workforce.

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

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into AI as he seeks to dramatically reshape his company’s inner workings around the technology, reflecting a broader pattern among major U.S. companies this year, particularly in the tech sector.

Amazon.com similarly has trimmed 30,000 corporate employees in recent months, representing nearly 10% of itswhite-collar workers, while in February the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff.

In both of those cases, executives tied the cuts to efficiency gains from artificial intelligence.

Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts around the world, reported that 73,212 employees have lost their jobs sofar this year. For all of 2024, the figure was 153,000. Meta's layoffs this year will be the social media giant's mostsignificant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the "year of efficiency," when it eliminatedabout 21,000 jobs. At that time, Meta's stock was in freefall and the company was struggling to correct for COVID-era growth assumptions that ultimately proved unsustainable.

The company is in a more comfortable financial position this time, but executives envision a future of fewer management layers and greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.

Meta's shares are up 3.68% since the start of the year, although they are down from a record high achieved last summer. Last year, it generated more than $200 billion of revenue and achieved a $60 billion profit despite outsized spending on artificial intelligence.

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

In recent weeks, Meta has reorganized teams in its Reality Labs division and transferred engineers from throughout thecompany into a new "Applied AI" organization tasked with accelerating the development of AI agents that can write code and carry out complex tasks autonomously.