Meta will lay off around 8,000 employees on May 20, according to the news agency Reuters, citing three sources familiar with the development. This will be the first wave of job cuts by Facebook and Instagram's parent company in 2026.
8,000 employees, which is the 10% of the total global workforce of Meta, will be sacked in the initial round. The company has planned further layoffs in the second half of the year, sources told Reuters. However, details of the second round of job cuts, including the number of workers and the date, have not been revealed.
Also Read | Global tech layoffs hit 80,000 in Q1, tally may cross 3 lakh this year: Report.
Last month, the social media-run company was planning to lay off 20% or more jobs globally, as reported by Reuters in March this year.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is investing billions of dollars into AI as he wants to bring more AI technology to reshape the company's working system with tech, which has already been initiated by IT giants like Google, OpenAI, Amazon and others.
Amazon recently slashed around 30,000 employees, followed by Oracle, which recently terminated thousands of employees in its 6 am email, including in India, while in February, the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff. In all these cases, companies are trying to take work from AI or hiring staff with AI skills.
Layoffs.fyi, a website tracking tech job cuts around the world, reported that 73,212 employees have lost their jobs so far this year. For all of 2024, the figure was 153,000.