According to multiple employees familiar with the matter, Meta Chief People Officer Janelle Gale said at an internal meeting recently that the company cannot promise that there will not be a new round of layoffs in addition to the announced layoff plans. Previously, Meta had announced plans to lay off about 10% of its global employees next month.
Gale said at the meeting that the question of "whether there will be more layoffs" will always come up and that she "would love to say there won't be more layoffs" but can't make promises the company can't deliver. She emphasized that although the company's business remains stable, priorities may be adjusted at any time, industry competition remains fierce, and the company will continue to "manage costs responsibly." Against this background, Meta will continue to adjust the team structure as needed and try to "relocate talent" through internal mobility. Gale also mentioned that some departments will be more affected by this round of layoffs, but did not elaborate on which business lines were specific.
She specifically mentioned that Meta is increasing its investment in the "Applied AI (Applied Artificial Intelligence) organization," indicating that while reducing labor costs, the company will still allocate resources to strategic key areas. The company's management also stated at the meeting that the "token usage" of employees' internal use of AI will not be considered as a factor in layoffs.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also responded to the layoffs in this internal meeting, saying that AI automation was not the main factor driving the layoffs. He said that AI has indeed greatly improved the work efficiency of small teams, but the layoffs are more related to the company's overall strategy and resource allocation.
Regarding employee monitoring issues that are of concern to the outside world, Zuckerberg also mentioned at the meeting that Meta had previously announced that it would optimize AI models by recording employee keyboard strokes and mouse movement data. He emphasized that the actual situation is not that humans are monitoring the specific operations of employees in real time. The data will be abstracted and used to improve the AI system, rather than directly used to monitor individual work performance.
At the meeting, Meta’s head of AI, Alexander Wang, also made a brief appearance and strongly praised the company’s latest progress in AI during the Q&A session, especially mentioning the recently released Spark model. According to a photo seen by Business Insider, he attended the meeting wearing a camouflage T-shirt with multiple deer patterns on it, which was quite casual.
When asked about the impact of large-scale layoffs on employee morale, Gale admitted that this round of layoffs has indeed had an impact on morale within Meta, and that the company is working hard to make "the best humane arrangements possible under difficult circumstances." She mentioned that Meta has extended the COBRA health insurance subsidy to 18 months, which is equivalent to three times the original time, to reduce the pressure on laid off employees.
There have been signs from the outside world that Meta may have more than one round of personnel adjustments this year. Reuters reported in March that Meta planned to cut about 20% of its overall workforce throughout the year. According to data disclosed by Meta, the company currently has more than 77,000 employees. However, Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said on Wednesday's first-quarter earnings call that she "doesn't really know" what the company's ideal headcount should be.
At the same time, Meta is significantly increasing investment in infrastructure, especially spending related to AI. The company stated in its latest financial report that infrastructure spending this year will double to a range of US$125 billion to US$145 billion, mainly for AI computing power and data center construction. On the one hand, it is tightening labor costs, and on the other hand, it is increasing the pace of investment in AI and infrastructure. It also makes the outside world pay more attention to whether there will be additional layoffs in the future.