Meta started sending layoff notices to employees in Singapore early Tuesday morning, kicking off a global workforce reduction of roughly 8,000 people. The emails arrived at 4 a.m. local time.
The cuts represent about 10% of Meta’s total workforce and are expected to hit engineering and product teams hardest. Staff in the US and Europe were also expected to receive notifications the same day, according to Bloomberg.
The AI trade-off
Meta is planning to spend approximately $135 billion on AI-related capital expenditure this year. That figure equals the company’s total AI spending over the previous three years combined.
Alongside the 8,000 positions being eliminated, the company is also closing around 6,000 open roles that had yet to be filled, bringing the total reduction in planned workforce capacity to approximately 14,000 positions.
