Meta recently issued a notice to thousands of employees, confirming the launch of a new round of large-scale layoffs to make up for the cost pressure caused by the company's huge investment in the field of artificial intelligence. According to an internal email to employees, the team reduction was described as part of "continuous improvements to the company's operating efficiencies and to make room for other investments we are making."
Previously, since March this year, there have been reports from the outside that Meta plans to launch a new wave of layoffs. At that time, the expected scale was as high as 20% of the company's total headcount. However, the latest internal memo leaked in May showed that the actual number of layoffs in this round was about 8,000, accounting for about 10% of Meta’s approximately 78,000 employees, which was lower than earlier rumors.
This personnel adjustment closely follows Meta’s forward-looking layout at the financial level. In its forecast released in January this year, the company stated that capital expenditures in 2026 will reach US$115 billion to US$135 billion, mainly used to support the related research and development work of "Meta Superintelligence Labs" and core businesses. In comparison, Meta's capital expenditures in 2025 will be approximately US$72.22 billion, and its planned investment in 2026 will almost double.
While cutting existing positions, Meta is also accelerating the tilting of internal resources towards AI. There are reports that the company plans to transfer more than 7,000 existing employees to new artificial intelligence-related projects, and at the same time close about 6,000 vacant positions that were originally planned to be recruited to concentrate resources on advancing the AI strategy.
At the end of the email sent to laid-off employees, Meta emphasized its recognition and gratitude to the departing employees, saying, "We would like to emphasize again that we are grateful for your contributions. Your contributions at Meta have always been an important part of the company's story." At the same time, some affected employees have posted on platforms such as LinkedIn to confirm that they have been laid off, and posted their Meta work badges, indicating that the layoffs have entered the actual implementation stage.