Meta layoffs begin, employees wake up to 4 am email, 8,000 jobs on the line

Meta has reportedly begun laying off workers globally, with around 8,000 employees expected to be impacted. As per reports, the company sent emails to affected employees in its Singapore hub at 4 am on Wednesday.

In Short

• Meta begins layoffs, 8,000 employees likely to be impacted
• Meta’s Singapore team first to receive layoff email at 4 am
• The company will also reassign 7,000 workers

Meta has kicked off its latest round of layoffs that will impact around 10 per cent of its global workforce, or roughly 8,000 employees. As per reports, the company has started notifying workers with its Singapore teams being the first to receive the news.

As per a report by Bloomberg, Meta sent emails to impacted employees at its Singapore hub at 4 am local time (1:30 am IST). This comes at a time when the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm is planning to invest billions of dollars in AI this year.

Meta is said to have around 78,000 workers globally, before the reassignments and layoffs.

To give you some context, Oracle, another major tech firm, laid off around 30,000 workers globally by sending emails at 6 am to select employees.

Meta starts layoffs, asks employees to work from home

Previous reports indicate that Meta will be sending emails to impacted employees in separate waves, depending on the time zone. Keep in mind that the company is believed to have asked its staff in the US, Britain and other regions to work from home today.

Meta’s Chief People Officer Janelle Gale has said in an internal memo that apart from the 8,000 job cuts, the company will also reassign around 7,000 employees into new AI-native teams. Gale also hinted that the company was going to cut down on managerial roles, with a focus on smaller teams.

It is believed that this round of layoffs will likely affect engineering and product teams in particular, and additional layoffs could come later in the year.

Meta has also closed around 6,000 job openings as part of its organisational restructuring. Janelle explained, "We're now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership. We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding."

Low morale, mouse-tracking of employees

Meta first confirmed the 8,000 job cuts last month after the news was leaked in the media. This reportedly created insecurity and anxiety in Meta employees with an all-time low morale. Though some employees reportedly started grabbing free snacks and laptop chargers before the May 20 announcement.

In recent weeks, reports have emerged that Meta has started using a new software that can track employees’ mouse movements and keystrokes to train AI. This move was met with opposition within the company with over 1,000 employees signing a petition to stop this tracking.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has made AI the company's priority as Meta seeks to keep pace with rivals including Google and OpenAI. Meta said last month that it plans to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion this year, with the majority of these funds going into AI.

Meta's layoffs and restructuring comes at a time when other tech companies are also cutting jobs as they focus more on AI. Cisco announced last week that it would eliminate 4,000 roles, while Microsoft, Amazon and others have also recently announced layoffs or offered voluntary exits.

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