Meta is reportedly planning a major internal restructuring that includes laying off around 8,000 employees. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company is also putting about 6,000 open roles on hold and not filling them, reports Bloomberg, citing an internal memo. The cuts are expected to roll out in phases starting May 20. The social media giant had an estimated 79,000 employees at the end of 2025, making the scale of the planned 8,000 job cuts even more notable, as it represents around 10% of its entire global workforce.
The phased nature of the layoffs, expected to begin in late May, suggests an attempt to manage internal disruption while still achieving large-scale restructuring. Employees are expected to receive notifications in stages rather than through a single announcement, a method commonly used in large tech firms to reduce operational shock and allow for smoother transition support processes.
Along with these job cuts, the social media behemoth is also effectively freezing a large portion of its hiring pipeline. Around 6,000 open positions that had already been approved across various departments will no longer be filled. These roles are spread across engineering, product development, operations, and support functions, meaning the freeze is not limited to a single division but cuts across the company’s core business structure.
Notably, Meta is not cutting jobs because it is losing money. Even the company made over $200 billion in revenue and around $60 billion in profit in its latest year. The layoffs are happening because CEO Mark Zuckerberg is changing the company’s direction toward AI. Meta is now spending a lot on AI technology, including powerful computer chips, cloud systems, and skilled AI workers, to compete with companies like Google and OpenAI. For example, the company recently made a $60 billion deal with AMD for AI chips. It also reportedly bought Moltbook, an AI agent platform, to improve its AI work. Last year, the firm invested $14 billion in Scale AI, which led to Alexandr Wang joining to run its Superintelligence Labs. The company may also spend up to $135 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026.
The scenario becomes even more critical as earlier reports suggest that in 2026 alone, the company could reduce its global workforce by around 16,000. This would not be entirely surprising given the company’s past history. Earlier, in 2022, the firm laid off 11,000 employees. Again in 2023, it cut almost 10,000 positions and eliminated 5,000 unfilled roles.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
