Goal is saying goodbye there 8,000 employees and cutting approximately 6,000 vacant positionsand the changes will take effect on May 20. These reductions represent approximately 10% of Meta’s global workforce. 78,865 employees. The layoffs were announced in an internal memo from Meta’s head of human resources, Janelle Gale, and confirmed by a company spokesperson.
Gale stated in the memo that the move is part of an effort to run the company more efficiently and offset other investments. The memo was first reported by Bloomberg.
Why is Meta making these cuts?
Meta expects its capital spending in 2026 to be between 115 billion dollars and 135 billion dollarsfrom $72.2 billion in 2025. The increase is primarily due to investments in Meta Superintelligence Labs and core business infrastructure. Layoffs are presented as a way to improve efficiency and free up resources for that expense without significantly increasing total costs.
For the fourth quarter of 2025, Meta reported record quarterly revenue of $59.89 billion and a net income of $22.77 billion. The company also projects that revenue for the first quarter of 2026 will be between $53.5 billion and $56.5 billion, higher than previous Wall Street estimates. Full financial results for the first quarter of 2026 are scheduled to be released on April 29.
How these layoffs fit into the recent history of Meta and the AI push
The May 20 layoffs are Meta’s largest since March 2023, when the company eliminated 10,000 jobs following an earlier reduction of 11,000 employees in November 2022. In addition to the liquidation of vacant positions, the current layoffs total about 14,000 positions eliminated from Meta’s workforce and hiring plans.
These layoffs occur at the same time that Meta presents its Model Capability InitiativeA computerized employee monitoring program was announced this week to collect interaction data for AI training. Besides, the company has launched Muse Sparkits first in-house AI model developed by Superintelligence Labs.
