Meta cuts 8,000 jobs

Meta told employees on April 23 that it will cut about 8,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, with layoffs starting May 20. (cnbc.com) The cuts were outlined in an internal memo and will be paired with a hiring pullback: Meta said it will not fill 6,000 open roles it had planned to staff. (bloomberg.com) (techcrunch.com) Chief People Officer Janelle Gale told employees the layoffs were part of an effort to run the company more efficiently and offset other investments. (techcrunch.com) (cbsnews.com) Those other investments are increasingly tied to artificial intelligence. Meta has spent the first months of 2026 announcing chip, energy and data-center projects built around AI workloads. (about.fb.com 1) (about.fb.com 2) On April 21, two days before the layoff memo, Meta said it was breaking ground on a new AI-optimized data center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, its 28th in the United States and 32nd globally. The company said the site would represent more than $1 billion of regional investment. (about.fb.com) Meta said in its latest annual report that it had 78,865 employees as of December 31. A 10% cut lines up with the roughly 8,000 jobs described in the memo. (cnbc.com) This is not Meta’s first pruning round in 2026. CNBC reported that about 1,000 Reality Labs employees were cut in January, and hundreds more workers across Facebook, sales, global operations and other units were affected in March. (cnbc.com) Analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush said more reductions could come later this year as Meta tries to lower costs while expanding its AI capabilities. Reuters, cited by other outlets before the memo, had also reported that additional layoffs were expected in the second half of 2026. (cbsnews.com) (usatoday.com) The timing leaves employees with less than a month between the memo and the first scheduled cuts. For Meta, the message in April was simple: fewer people, fewer open jobs, and more money aimed at AI infrastructure. (cnbc.com) (bloomberg.com)