Meta will lay off 10% of workforce, company told staff today

Meta announced to employees on Thursday that the company is laying off around 10% of the company on May 20—about 8,000 employees out of its workforce of more than 78,000 will be impacted, Bloomberg first reported. 

The company will also close 6,000 open roles it planned to fill, according to a memo that was sent to staffers today from Meta’s chief people officer, Janella Gale.

In the memo, obtained by Business Insider, Gale attributed the cuts to Meta’s “continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.” 

The memo did not specify what those “other investments” are, but it’s public knowledge that the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been going all in on AI. 

Earlier this year, the company announced it would spend up to $135 billion on AI initiatives. Just this week, it was reported that Meta would track its employees’ mouse movements and keystrokes to train AI models. Last week, the Financial Times reported that the company was developing an AI clone of CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Meta confirmed Bloomberg’s reporting of the layoffs—which attributed the cuts to boosting efficiency and offsetting the company’s “heavy spending on artificial intelligence”—but declined to comment further.

“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,” the memo said.

Meta will offer “generous severance package[s]” for laid-off staff, which includes 16 weeks’ base pay, in addition to two weeks for every year of employment, according to the memo. Additionally, impacted employees’ COBRA health coverage will be covered for 18 months.

“I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity which is incredibly unsettling,” the memo ended. “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.”

Meta, along with other tech giants Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft, will report its first-quarter earnings next year. The company’s shares fell 2.4% today.

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