Meta began notifying employees in Singapore of layoffs early Tuesday morning, marking the start of a global workforce reduction of approximately 8,000 people, or about 10% of the company's total staff.
The cuts are expected to hit engineering and product teams hardest. Alongside the 8,000 job eliminations, Meta is also closing roughly 6,000 unfilled open roles, bringing the total reduction in planned workforce capacity to around 14,000 positions.
The AI Trade-Off
Meta plans to spend approximately $135 billion on AI-related capital expenditure this year, equaling the company's total AI spending over the previous three years combined.
A Broader Industry Trend
About 49,000 tech workers have been laid off across the industry in 2026 as companies adopt AI-reliant business models. Amazon and Microsoft have made similar adjustments, trimming traditional roles while boosting AI investment.
Meta reportedly intends to log and track employee interactions with corporate systems to train its AI models, raising internal concerns about data usage and surveillance.