Meta is planning to lay off 8,000 employees next month. As per a Reuters report, further layoffs are planned in the second half of the year. These details of layoffs are yet unclear. The initial round may take place in May, which would reduce the number of Meta employees to 10 per cent in 2026.
As per the report, the layoff plan will depend on the AI developments. Meta is planning to lay off 20 percent of its employees. If the US Tech giant plans to implement such a huge number of layoffs, there would be 16,000 job losses, depending on Meta's workforce, which is 79,000 employees as of 31 December 2025.
Still, Meta has not clearly informed about layoff plans. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company has not commented on the report immediately. There is no doubt that global tech layoffs are increasing in 2026, with more than 80,000 job cuts in the first quarter, and total job losses may exceed 3 lakh in 2026, led by companies like Amazon, Meta, and Oracle.
Automation and AI are the key drivers of this major shift, with half of all layoffs in 2026 associated with AI-related restructuring. The US is the worst-hit market, accounting for 77 percent of layoffs in 2026 and 61,000 job cuts across global companies.
Oracle has reported more than 25,000 job cuts in 2026 due to AI restructuring. Amazon has followed with 16,000 job losses amid efforts to improve efficiency. Layoffs is a website tracking tech job losses across the globe, reports that 73,000 workforce have lost their jobs till now. In 2024, this figure was 1,53,000.
Meta has also reorganized teams in its Reality AI labs division and shifted the workforce into a new Applied AI organization for the development of AI agents that can carry out complex tasks autonomously.
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