Meta & Microsoft cuts widen
- Meta told employees on April 23 it will cut about 8,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, beginning May 20, and it also scrapped plans to fill 6,000 open roles. - Microsoft, in a separate April 23 memo, offered its first voluntary U.S. retirement buyout, covering about 7% of domestic staff, as both companies keep steering spending toward artificial intelligence. - The cuts land as big tech pours record sums into data centers and AI models after earlier pandemic-era hiring binges. (cnbc.com)
Meta is cutting about 8,000 jobs, and Microsoft is offering its first U.S. employee buyout program as both companies redirect spending toward artificial intelligence. (cnbc.com 1) (cnbc.com 2) Meta said in a Thursday memo that the layoffs equal roughly 10% of its workforce and will start on May 20. The company also canceled hiring for 6,000 open roles it had planned to fill. (cnbc.com) (techcrunch.com) Microsoft’s program is a one-time voluntary retirement offer for some U.S. employees at senior director level and below whose age and years of service add up to at least 70. CNBC reported about 7% of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce is eligible. (cnbc.com) (reuters.com) The immediate backdrop is spending. Meta has been increasing its artificial-intelligence investment, and Microsoft has been pouring money into the same race while looking for savings elsewhere. (cnbc.com) (reuters.com) These moves also follow years of expansion and retrenchment across tech after pandemic hiring surged and then slowed. The latest cuts show the reductions are now hitting even the companies spending most aggressively on AI infrastructure. (finance.yahoo.com) (cnbc.com) Meta’s memo framed the layoffs as an efficiency move tied to its next phase of investment. Bloomberg and CNBC both reported the company is trying to offset heavier AI spending while reshaping its workforce. (bloomberg.com) (cnbc.com) Microsoft’s buyouts are voluntary, not a companywide layoff, and the company has not publicly disclosed how many employees it expects will accept. Reuters said the program is the first in Microsoft’s 51-year history. (reuters.com) (cnbc.com) Reuters also reported that adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot had reached just over 3% of its 450 million Microsoft 365 customers, a sign that revenue from flagship AI products is still developing even as investment stays high. (reuters.com) Taken together, Meta’s layoffs and Microsoft’s buyouts point to a new phase in the AI buildout: more money for chips, models, and data centers, and less certainty for parts of the existing workforce. (cnbc.com) (finance.yahoo.com)
