Meta Is Laying Off 10% of Its Workforce (qz.com)
- Reference: 0181954518
- News link: https://meta.slashdot.org/story/26/04/23/1917223/meta-is-laying-off-10-of-its-workforce
- Source link: https://qz.com/meta-layoffs-10-percent-workforce-ai-push-042326
> 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 [2]between 10% and 15% of its Reality Labs workforce in January, [3]shut down several VR game studios, and [4]shed about 700 positions across at least five divisions in March.
[1] https://qz.com/meta-layoffs-10-percent-workforce-ai-push-042326
[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/13/1443226/meta-begins-job-cuts-as-it-shifts-from-metaverse-to-ai-devices
[3] https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/01/13/2356235/meta-closes-three-vr-studios-as-part-of-its-metaverse-cuts
[4] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/14/012226/meta-plans-sweeping-layoffs-as-ai-costs-mount
The cancer is growing (Score:3)
> 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:4, Funny)
...where's my Metaverse avatar's LEGS?
Re: (Score:2)
I was writing a similar reply and Slashdot ate my post. Guessing this was your source:
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BaSBjxNg-M
Still jaded (Score:2)
Call me even [1]more skeptical [slashdot.org] about the announcement about click and key monitoring not being a way to constructively dismiss employees.
[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23971812&cid=66105518
Suicidal (Score:3)
There's nothing quite as dispiriting as instructing employees to use tools to render their jobs obsolete.
It's a start ... (Score:2)
Mark clones himself with AI (https://meta.slashdot.org/story/26/04/13/1642228/mark-zuckerberg-is-reportedly-building-an-ai-clone-to-replace-him-in-meetings) ... then increases complexity with real people (https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/04/21/1849217/meta-to-start-capturing-employee-mouse-movements-keystrokes-for-ai-training-data) ... then reduce staff 10% by replacing with AI capturings? Once the first batch are suitably digitized, then incrementally the rest will be. No staff costs, no manage
Negative Sum Game (Score:2)
A positive sum game is a game where everyone can benefit by playing.
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.
not horrible as it could be (Score:1)
As layoffs go, 18 months of health insurance and guaranteed four months of continued pay as a severance package? That actually seems pretty generous to me. They could just axe them and show the door, not give them anything, right? Zuck is doing something here he doesn't have to do. But then the reason I think it's 'generous' is probably because I've been conditioned by corporations to accept being screwed over as normal treatment when you're let go from a job. This sort of exit package should be a pretty s
Translation: they're screwed (Score:3)
If you're making continuous investments then you need people.
We are in a recession (Score:3, Insightful)
Trump put us there. The last straw was when he attacked Iran with no plan whatsoever and no support from frankly anyone.
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:2, 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.
That's just it they're not (Score:1)
Only about 36% favor Trump's immigration policy right now. The remainder want him to tone it down and stop deporting Grandmas and people's wives and husbands.
I don't buy it when people tell me that people will not just tell the pollster the truth. I don't believe in the silent majority nonsense. You get a little bit in public where some people won't say what they really believe but when it's between you and a random Poll it's not really an issue.
Moreover the results of those polls track election res
Re: (Score:2)
> 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.