CNBC | Thursday, April 23, 2026 
Meta will cut 10% of workforce as company pushes deeper into AI

Meta plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, equaling about 8,000 jobs, as it continues ramping up investments in artificial intelligence. The cuts will begin on May 20, and the company is scrapping plans to hire people for 6,000 open roles, according to a Thursday memo to employees. Bloomberg was first to report on the layoffs. Meta’s latest round of cuts follows several smaller job reductions that the company said was necessary to to improve efficiency while focusing its efforts on generative AI, where it’s lagged OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. CNBC reported in January that Meta fired roughly 10% of employees who were working on metaverse-related projects. Roughly 1,000 people in the company’s Reality Labs unit were let go at that time. Another round of layoffs commenced in March and affected hundreds of employees working in a variety of units, including Facebook, Reality Labs, global operations and sales. Meta also said last month that it would shift away from third-party vendors and contractors, which have historically handled content moderation tasks, in favor of relying on various AI technologies. Job cuts are picking up across the tech sector as companies reckon with the AI boom. Microsoft confirmed on Thursday that it will offer voluntary buyouts to some U.S. employees, a first for the 51-year-old software giant. About 7% of U.S. employees are eligible, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because…Read more