Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has announced a major round of layoffs affecting about 8,000 employees globally, representing nearly 10 percent of its workforce.
According to reports, the layoffs began on Wednesday and are expected to occur in phases across different regions and departments.
Employees affected include workers in Meta’s integrity team, responsible for tackling harmful content and hate speech, as well as staff in cybersecurity and content design divisions.
The company said workers in the United States would receive 16 weeks of severance pay, in addition to two extra weeks for every year spent with the company.
Alongside the job cuts, Meta also disclosed plans to cancel the recruitment of about 6,000 new employees while reassigning nearly 7,000 workers to artificial intelligence (AI)-related operations.
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The latest development comes amid reports of declining staff morale linked to the company’s growing focus on AI development and automation.
According to reports, some workers raised concerns over an internal AI training programme that allegedly uses employee data to improve Meta’s AI models. More than 1,500 employees were said to have signed a petition opposing the initiative.
Some employees also expressed fears that AI systems being developed by the company could eventually replace parts of the workforce.
Meta Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, has continued to defend the company’s heavy investment in artificial intelligence, particularly through its “Meta Superintelligence” initiative.
The company is reportedly projecting capital expenditures of between $125 billion and $145 billion this year, more than double its spending levels since 2025.
The layoffs at Meta come amid a broader wave of job cuts across the global technology industry, with companies increasingly restructuring operations around AI technologies.