Amid the seemingly never-ending wave of layoffs impacting the tech world, a new report’s emergence signalled that about 20% (or more) workforce at Meta could shrink as the company focusses on expanding its investments in artificial intelligence.
According to three sources cited by Reuters, top executives at Meta have shared to the plans with other senior leaders at the Mark Zuckerberg-led company, and they aim to achieve greater efficiency linked to AI-assisted workers. If the 20% layoffs actually go through, they will be the company’s most significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023.
As of now, neither a date for the speculative job cuts nor a magnitude has been finalised, the insiders divulged to Reuters.
Meta rubbishes new layoff announcement report
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone contradicted the claims in a statement, calling it “speculative reporting about theoretical approaches,” as per Reuters.
The Reuters report on potential Meta layoffs comes to light as the company has already laid out its plans to invest $600 billion to build data centres by 2028. It was also previously reported that the tech giant is spending at least $2 billion to purchase Chinese AI startup Manus.
Back in January, Zuckerberg emphasised that he was already starting to see an uptick in projects that once needed big teams, but could now be accomplished by a “single very talented person.” That same month, reports suggested that Meta had plans to cut around 10% of the employees in its Reality Labs division, as per the NYT.
Meta is only one of the many big tech firms mentioned on the 2026 layoff list. Other major companies referenced across reports tied to job cuts this year include, eBay, Amazon, Papa Johns, Pinterest, Nike, Verizon, Citi, Expedia, Lululemon, T-Mobile and many more.