Meta says it will cut 8,000 jobs as AI spending grows

Source: BBC Technology

Layoff Announcement

The company told employees in a memo on Thursday that it plans to cut 10 % of its workforce – roughly 8,000 staff – and will not fill thousands of open positions it had been hiring for.

AI Spending

A key driver of the layoffs is Meta’s increased spending on AI. The firm expects to spend $135 bn (£100 bn) on AI this year, an amount roughly equal to what it spent on AI in the previous three years combined. Source

Comments from Mark Zuckerberg

In January, Meta’s co‑founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company would likely cut jobs again this year. He noted that workers who rely heavily on AI tools have become far more productive, allowing a single person to complete projects that previously required a large team.

“I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work,” Zuckerberg said.

Previous Cuts and Context

• Meta has already cut around 2,000 workers in two smaller rounds of layoffs earlier this year.
• The upcoming cuts will be Meta’s largest layoff since 2023.
• The memo was first reported by Bloomberg link and follows earlier BBC reporting link.

Employee Monitoring Initiative

This week Meta informed employees that it would begin tracking and logging their interactions with work computers to help train and improve its AI models. One employee described the move as “dystopian” given the looming layoffs. Source

“This company has become obsessed with AI,” they told the BBC.