Meta Begins 8,000 Global Layoffs, Starting in Singapore, While Holding $100B AI Capex Intact

Meta has started laying off 8,000 employees globally, with workers in its Singapore Asia hub among the first to receive notices at 4 a.m. local time Wednesday. The cuts are designed to free up capital for the company's more than $100 billion AI investment agenda while slimming down the organization.

Meta Platforms (META) has begun notifying approximately 8,000 employees worldwide of their layoffs, part of a previously announced restructuring aimed at improving efficiency while maintaining heavy AI investment. Singapore employees received notices first Wednesday morning, with European and US staff expected to follow in their respective time zones. Workers were encouraged to work from home during the process.

Engineering and Product Teams Hit Hardest

The current round of cuts is expected to hit Meta's engineering and product teams particularly hard, with people familiar with the plans warning that additional layoffs could come later in the year. Separately, Meta has already reassigned 7,000 workers to newly formed teams focused on AI initiatives. The company had just under 80,000 employees as of the end of March, before the reassignments and this round of layoffs.

"Flatter Structure with Smaller Teams"

We're now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership. We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding.

Janelle Gale, Meta Head of People

The internal memo, reviewed by Bloomberg News, reflects Zuckerberg's multi-year push for efficiency. Meta has gone through several rounds of layoffs in recent years, including the so-called Year of Efficiency in 2022-2023 that cut over 10,000 positions.

• Layoff scale: approximately 8,000 globally (~10% of March-end headcount of ~80,000)
• AI reassignments: 7,000 employees moved to new AI-focused teams (separate from layoffs)
• Hardest hit: engineering and product teams; more cuts possible later in 2026
• AI capex: $100B+ commitment maintained for the year

Zuckerberg's All-In on AI

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI the company's singular priority as it competes against Alphabet's Google and OpenAI. Meta is committing well in excess of $100 billion to AI capital expenditures this year — the drive for cost efficiency that makes these layoffs necessary.

Zuckerberg has encouraged engineers to use AI agents for coding and other tasks, outlined plans to track employee devices to improve technology, and has personally coded an AI-powered assistant to handle some CEO duties, including soliciting employee feedback.

Layoffs and the Stock

Meta's previous efficiency-driven cuts in 2022-2023 were rewarded with a sharp stock recovery. This round follows a bout of investor concern: when Meta raised its AI capex target to as much as $145 billion for the year, shares fell 7% on the announcement. Whether cost savings from 8,000 fewer employees offsets that pressure is the key question for investors.