Meta Is Laying Off 10% of Its Workforce (qz.com) 46
Meta is reportedly cutting about 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 jobs, while closing thousands of open roles it had intended to fill. "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," said Janelle Gale, Meta's chief people officer. The company had almost 79,000 employees at the start of the year. Quartz reports: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has poured resources into building out AI capabilities, directing spending toward model development, chatbot products, and the engineering talent to support them. Meta set its 2026 capital expenditure guidance at $115 billion to $135 billion, almost double the $72 billion it spent in 2025. Employees have been encouraged to use AI agents internally for tasks such as writing code.
The early disclosure, Gale explained, was prompted by the fact that information about the cuts had already made its way into press reports before the company was ready to announce. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," she wrote.
According to the memo, severance for affected workers in the United States will cover 18 months of COBRA health insurance premiums, along with a base pay component of 16 weeks that increases by two weeks for each year of service. Departing employees will have access to job placement assistance and, where applicable, help navigating immigration status. Packages outside the U.S. will vary by country. Meta cut between 10% and 15% of its Reality Labs workforce in January, shut down several VR game studios, and shed about 700 positions across at least five divisions in March.
The early disclosure, Gale explained, was prompted by the fact that information about the cuts had already made its way into press reports before the company was ready to announce. "I know this is unwelcome news and confirming this puts everyone in an uneasy state, but we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances," she wrote.
According to the memo, severance for affected workers in the United States will cover 18 months of COBRA health insurance premiums, along with a base pay component of 16 weeks that increases by two weeks for each year of service. Departing employees will have access to job placement assistance and, where applicable, help navigating immigration status. Packages outside the U.S. will vary by country. Meta cut between 10% and 15% of its Reality Labs workforce in January, shut down several VR game studios, and shed about 700 positions across at least five divisions in March.
Translation: they're screwed (Score:3)
If you're making continuous investments then you need people.
We are in a recession (Score:2, Insightful)
Trump is hoping for a second 9/11 but Iran wasn't dumb enough to take that bait.
So we're going to keep seeing more and more and more layoffs. All of which will be blamed on AI so we can pretend that there is no recession and that there's no need to do any course correction.
One of the craziest things I keep seeing is that Trump will poll at 33% favorability for economy and then
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Immigration. That class of Trump voter you talked about is Anti-Immigration, and will hold their nose as long as Trump follows Stephen Miller's playbook. If Miller ever got fired, then the base would turn on him instantly.
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I don't understand those voters. And they're a pretty sizable block. They approve of absolutely nothing Trump is doing but then they approve of trump as president. It's one of the most bizarre phenomenons I've ever seen.
I assume these are the ones who don't really care what Trump does, as long as he "drains the swamp", "tears down the establishment", and "sticks it to the libs". They don't like his changes, but they like that something is changing, because something has to change, and this is something, so this has to change.
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No, if you'd spoken to these people you'd know they actively like some of the changes he is making. They absolutely want him to harm migrants and refugees. That is absolutely what they voted for, and they are getting it, and they are happy about it. They are immune to facts, like "undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than it costs to support them [itep.org]" or that "the United States agreed to accept refugees and asylum seekers who may apply for protected status after arriving here [americanim...ouncil.org]". They just want those people
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No, if you'd spoken to these people you'd know they actively like some of the changes he is making.
I think you must be talking about different people. The people we're talking about the ones who when asked about *every* individual issue say that they don't like what he is doing, but when asked about the overall person, say that they do.
I mean, it is possible that some people like him overall, but that distinct subsets of those people dislike each area. That said, that theory is pretty dubious, because the percentage swing on each issue is quite large, and if you add up the size of those dips, the resul
Re: We are in a recession (Score:4, Interesting)
The war is speeding it up, but the market has been sucking wind since 2023, it's just sucking harder now.
Same pattern as the other recessions I've lived through. First R&D (aka software engineers, etc) gets steady cuts with whatever lie makes the Wall Street cocaine cowboys bonkers hard (Covid over-hiring, AI advances, etc). Then it spreads to the broader economy. Then they throw in the towel and stop lying about the state of the economy when their pet stock market starts melting down, so they have an excuse to fire up the money printer.
Re:Translation: they're screwed (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're making continuous investments then you need people.
Not really, the tech companies have been doing this for years.
They hire a bunch of folks at high salaries, but not all of those work out, and managers hate laying folks off.
So they make big across-the-board cuts and now everybody from top to bottom is forced to make a bunch of tough decisions about who to cut.
You don't get rid of the worst 10% of your work force, but on average, the 10% you lose is less valuable than the 90% you keep.
And then you go hire some more.
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You don't get rid of the worst 10% of your work force, but on average, the 10% you lose is less valuable than the 90% you keep.
I'm getting a bad Sturgeon's Law trigger from reading this.
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Continuous improvements in replacing people with some AI.
Those pesky humans tend to want paychecks, lunch breaks, insurance, bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, physical space to sit on their butts on an expensive chair (expensive meaning any chair at all), 401K, stock options, an 8-hour workday, paid time off, holidays off, vacation, et cetera.
With an AI doing all the jobs in that department, we don't need those expensive, pesky humans, so all the C-suite crew can get bigger salaries!
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The cancer is growing (Score:5, Insightful)
Meta[statize] Is Laying Off 10% of Its Workforce
The existing malignant growth has now caused the body to shed other weight, to make more room for itself.
Won't be much longer now.....
You just burned $70 billion dollars... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I was writing a similar reply and Slashdot ate my post. Guessing this was your source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Still jaded (Score:4, Interesting)
Suicidal (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing quite as dispiriting as instructing employees to use tools to render their jobs obsolete.
Re:Suicidal (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing quite as dispiriting as instructing employees to use tools to render their jobs obsolete.
How about training your H1-B replacements?
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Not anywhere near. At least H1-B replacements are human. With needs, maybe families, etc. As sad as it is for you, it would be an opportunity for a better life for them. Not comparable to spinning another instance of a lifeless algorithm, which provides Altman et al a tiny teeny bit more pocket change.
Re: Suicidal (Score:1)
Very interesting. Now shut up and kneel, pleb.
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And, they get to take your job (which you've been doing for like 15 years), and expect the employer to bend over backwards to cater to their culture, religion, everything they say, while they can kind of speak English... all because they have a family (even though you do, too).
Or, the immigrants who came here legally, and get tons of public assistance because they have 6 kids listed in their household (five of the kids are borrowed someone else in their community), and their 'advocate' takes care of all the
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Making jobs obsolete, seems like dystopian hype. To me, it's more like telling construction workers to start using power tools.
It's important to note here that Facebook isn't claiming they are cutting jobs because AI has made them so much more efficient, but rather, because they want to spend so much money on AI infrastructure, and there's not enough left over to spend like they used to.
It's a start ... (Score:2)
Negative Sum Game (Score:5, Interesting)
A zero sum game is a game where the total benefit is fixed, for someone to win someone else has to lose.
A negative sum game is where where playing it causes everyone to lose. I.E. "A game of global thermonuclear war".
AI investments are threatening to go into negative sum territory, if all these billions of dollars don't pay off all these people will have lost their jobs just to waste money. Great depression 2.0 here we gooooooo.
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Modern society is a negative sum game in general because it is extractive rather than regenerative. It's based on the extraction of natural resources which cannot be replenished, and the very act of using them destroys other natural resources.
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If by "modern" you are willing to look deep into the neolith. Can't you see the Lake Superior American Indian picking up a piece of pure copper from the beach and saying. "Jeez, bet daughter could beat this into the new necklace she's been asking for. Damned Iroquois boyfriend wants his woman to wear jewelry."
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It used to be that way when things were simpler, but now that we've put AI in charge of everything, we're going to AI ourselves out of all jobs... maybe someone figures out a way to do UBI.
Of course, I'm sure that the UBI would be adjusted based on your monthly costs for everything, and you'll end up getting an extra, whopping $50 above the base amount for your living situation, monthly... although, that $50 probably ends up going to taxes, so you have a net positive of like $1 to add to your bank account.
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Don't forget about the Skynet aspect. Palantir and other LOTR-inspired companies making military grade hardware controlled by AI is already in the wild killing humans, other robots, anything that moves or acts like a target. If you are living in the Middle East or Ukraine right now, you are very much in the territory of everyone being hunted by Terminators. Mostly the flying bomb kind, but humanoid robots are beating experts in ping-pong. How long before we see CQB trained robots kicking down doors?
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The C-suite crew couldn't care less... they can afford another dozen Rolls Royce Phantom's and a new private jet, on the increase in their salary, now that they don't have to pay those pesky humans!!
We are (nay, have always been) the little people, if the employer's legal team can find a way, they'll only pay what they absolutely have to and cut back benefits as much as possible while all stay within the 'legal' bounds.
not horrible as it could be (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: not horrible as it could be (Score:3)
Do the math (Score:5, Interesting)
"We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making," said Janelle Gale, Meta's chief people officer.
Let's see how well that's going to work. Assume their average expenses are $200k per employee per year. Laying off 8000 will save $1.6 billion per year. How much of their $115-135 billion capital expenditure will that offset? Or even just the $43-63 billion increase from last year?
Not much.
Assume none of those people was doing anything useful and laying them off is pure savings. Then it's only a drop in the bucket. If some of them were doing useful things and laying them off impacts the company's business, the calculation gets even worse.
Have zero problem with Meta circling the drain (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is a blight on our collective culture and is merely a tool to monetize data that ought to be private.
Scene from bring-your-parent-to-work day, 2038 (Score:5, Funny)
First-grader (raising hand): Why is Meta called "Meta"?
Zuckerberg: I don't want to talk about it
layoffs (Score:2)
Re:layoffs (Score:4, Informative)
Once again proof that profits is the only thing that matters to a company.
Well, duh. That's what capitalism is all about. What I find irritating is that most companies go out of their way to claim that they have far more noble goals in mind when the lay off thousands of people, and that doing so was a 'tough decision'.
Anti-patterns (Score:2)
Anti-pattern of a clueless, one-hit-wonder leader wasting money on delusional dreams.
Anti-pattern of a soulless corporation treating people like garbage, and of the responsibility of workers foolishly depending on the mercurial whims of such corporations rather than unionizing or forming their own worker-owned co-op businesses.
Anti-pattern of selling-out to fascists and having no core ethics or values.
Disclaimer:
Meta? (Score:2)
Do they actually do anything?