{"id":38654,"date":"2026-04-23T23:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/04\/23\/meta-says-it-will-cut-8000-jobs-as-ai-spending-soars\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:23:12","slug":"meta-says-it-will-cut-8000-jobs-as-ai-spending-soars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/04\/23\/meta-says-it-will-cut-8000-jobs-as-ai-spending-soars\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta says it will cut 8,000 jobs as AI spending soars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kali Hays<\/span>Technology reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Meta will cut thousands of jobs next month as it spends more than ever on artificial intelligence (AI) projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The company told employees in a memo on Thursday that it planned to cut 10% of its workforce – roughly 8,000 staff. It said it would also not fill thousands more open jobs it had been hiring for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A key reason for the layoffs is Meta’s increased spending in other areas of the company, including AI, for which it will this year spend $135bn (\u00a3100bn). This is roughly equal to the amount it has spent on AI in the previous three years combined, according to a person who viewed the memo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A spokesman for Meta confirmed the planned job cuts but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and chief executive, made public comments in January that essentially telegraphed the company would be cutting jobs again this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Meta boss said he had seen how much more productive workers who relied heavily on AI tools had become, noting a single person could now complete projects that would have previously required a large team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work,” Zuckerberg said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last week Reuters news agency reported that Meta was planning to cut potentially more than 10,000 employees this year. The memo to employees on Thursday was first reported by Bloomberg. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Meta has already cut around 2,000 workers in two smaller rounds of layoffs already this year, employees had been braced for weeks for a much deeper cut, as the BBC previously reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meta’s spending and internal focus had shifted heavily in recent months toward catching up on the development of AI models and tools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The company just this week informed employees that it would begin tracking and logging their interactions with work computers in order to help train and improve its AI models, a move one employee called “dystopian” given the looming layoffs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This company has become obsessed with AI,” they told the BBC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since 2022, Meta has enacted several rounds of job cuts, shedding tens of thousands of workers. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it had started hiring again, and last year its overall number of employees looked to be at around the same level it had been at before its initial layoff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The upcoming jobs cuts will be Meta’s largest layoff since 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A number of other tech firms, most of which are also spending huge sums on building tools and infrastructure for AI technology, have also enacted swathes of job cuts this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Block, which is among the smaller tech companies, laid off nearly half of its staff totaling more than 4,000 workers. And Snap, another smaller tech company, has laid off around 1,000. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Also on Thursday, Microsoft told employees that it would offer thousands of workers with longer tenure at the firm voluntary buyouts. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nearly all of the companies have cited the growing capabilities of, or increased investment in, AI technology as a factor in executives’ perceived need for fewer employees. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 hours ago Kali HaysTechnology reporter Reuters Meta will cut thousands of jobs next month as it spends more than ever on artificial intelligence (AI) projects. The company told employees in a memo on Thursday that it planned to cut 10% of its workforce – roughly 8,000 staff. It said it would also not fill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}