Meta to lay off nearly 8,000 employees; Singapore staff first to be notified

The parent company of Facebook, Meta Platforms Inc., is set to lay off nearly 8,000 employees and has begun alerting thousands of staff members about the job cuts. The company said the move is part of a restructuring exercise aimed at improving efficiency, reducing costs, and increasing investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Meta has started notifying employees, with staff in its Asian hub, Singapore, receiving notices at 4 a.m. local time. Employees based in Europe and the United States are also expected to receive notifications according to their respective time zones, as per an internal memo.

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Further, Meta has encouraged employees to work from home while the company proceeds with cutting roughly 8,000 roles globally.

The job cuts are expected to particularly affect Meta’s engineering and product teams, and reports suggest that additional layoffs could follow later this year.

“We’re now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure, with smaller teams or pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership,” Meta’s Head of People, Janelle Gale, said in the memo.

“We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding,” she added.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had earlier addressed employees, saying that AI automation is not the primary reason behind the upcoming layoffs.

Zuckerberg said he believes AI has made smaller teams more efficient. He also explained Meta’s controversial plan to monitor employee keystrokes and mouse movements, clarifying that humans are not directly watching staff activity and that the data is being abstracted to improve AI models.

Meta had more than 78,000 employees on its rolls at the end of 2025.