Meta Starts Handing out Layoff Emails as 8,000 Jobs Disappear in AI-driven Shake-up

Business Insider, BBC, Forbes, New York Post, and Bloomberg contributed to this report.

Meta’s long-dreaded layoff day has arrived.

The company has begun emailing roughly 10% of its 78,000 workers, telling them their jobs are gone as it pushes ahead with a major restructuring tied to efficiency and bigger AI spending. The cuts are expected to wipe out around 8,000 roles, including some management jobs, while more than 7,000 employees are being shifted into AI-focused work.

The notices are rolling out in waves at 4 a.m. local time across different regions. In the US, impacted workers are being told to stay home and wait for the email. Once it lands, internal access is cut off. The message is blunt: your role has been eliminated.

Meta says the move is part of a broader effort to run the company more efficiently and make room for other investments. In plain English, that means less money for old structures and more for AI.

The severance package is decent by tech-industry standards. US employees will get 16 weeks of base pay, plus two extra weeks for every year they have been there, along with 18 months of health coverage for them and their families. Workers outside the US will get similar packages, adjusted by country.

The pain is not being spread evenly. Teams in Integrity, cybersecurity and content design are among those already hit, and managerial roles are being trimmed across the company as Meta tries to flatten its org chart and move faster with smaller teams.

That has left employees in limbo for weeks. Since the cuts were announced back in April, many staffers have been stuck guessing whether they would be safe or gone. Some have even been posting on Blind that they were hoping to be laid off, mostly because the severance looked strong enough to soften the blow.

Meta’s pivot is happening at the same time it is pouring huge sums into AI infrastructure. The company has said it could spend as much as $145 billion in 2026 on capital expenditures, a staggering number that helps explain why it is slashing payroll now. The math is simple: AI is expensive, and the company is trying to clear room for it.

The layoffs are not just a Silicon Valley story either. In Ireland, around 350 jobs are understood to be at risk, and Meta has already filed a collective redundancy notice there. Irish officials say they will support workers, but the mood is clearly grim.

There is also no sense that this is the last round. Meta leaders have not ruled out more cuts later this year, which means the anxiety hanging over the company is probably not going away anytime soon.

For employees, the message is harsh but clear. Meta is shrinking one part of the business to bankroll the next one. And for thousands of workers, Wednesday was the day the cost of that shift became very real.