Meta Platforms Inc. is laying off some 8,000 employees, about 10 percent of its staff, as it seeks to shift resources to other areas like its aggressive artificial intelligence investments.
The company, which owns Instagram and Facebook, informed employees of the looming cuts Thursday, with impacted employees set to be notified next month. Meta will also close 6,000 open job listings. The cuts were announced by a memo sent by the company’s head of human resources, which was viewed by The Hollywood Reporter. A request for comment had not been returned as of writing.
“Normally, we would want to nail down more details before communicating about this broadly, but since this has leaked, I want to share what I can right now,” wrote Meta chief people officer Janelle gale in the memo. “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.”
Meta’s cuts come a week after Snap laid off 1,000 employees, citing its own push to integrate AI more tightly into its work. Amazon laid off some 16,000 jobs earlier this year in an effort to reduce bureaucracy at the company.
Also on Thursday, Microsoft announced a voluntary buyout program for about 7 percent of its workforce, as the tech giant also seeks to restructure itself for what seems like a new era.
Microsoft and Meta, like its counterparts Google and Amazon, are pouring billions of dollars into AI investments, including in data centers and compute, and leaning into leveraging AI tools to move faster and more efficiently.
But the cuts also underscore the uncertain impact that AI will have on the overall economy, not only because of the high cost of compute, but because of the risk to the overall job market.
