Mark Zuckerberg in internal memo to employees: Not expecting company-wide layoffs this year
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees in an internal memo on Wednesday (May 20) that he does not expect any further company-wide layoffs for the remainder of the year, news agency Reuters reported, citing an internal memo. The announcement has been made on the same day the Facebook parent company executed a sweeping corporate reorganisation, cutting 10% of its global workforce and reassigning 7,000 other employees to newly-formed artificial intelligence (AI) divisions.
While the job cuts hit multiple departments, Zuckerberg appears to have sought to stabilise internal morale by signaling an end to broad, company-wide staff reductions for the foreseeable future. Multiple reports claimed that ahead of the May 20 job cuts, the morale of several employees was down.
Meta begins global layoffs of 8,000 staff members
Meta started laying off employees across its global offices, with workers in Singapore reporting termination emails landing in their inboxes as early as 4am local time, as per a Bloomberg report. In an internal memo, Meta's Head of People Janelle Gale explained the company's thinking behind the restructuring.
“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,” Gale wrote. “We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding,” she added.
Meta told employees to work from home
Ahead of the May 20 layoffs, Meta employees were told to work from home as the layoffs rolled out. The company also reassigned around 7,000 employees to new AI-focused teams working on products and AI agents.
The cuts are expected to mainly affect Meta's engineering and product teams even as Zuckerberg makes AI company's top priority. The company is competing with rivals such as Google and OpenAI. The company is expected to spend more than $100 billion on Al-related capital expenditure this year alone. The company also surveilled employees systems.
Days before Meta started laying off 8,000 people, Mark Zuckerberg gathered his employees for an all-hands meeting and told them that their computers were being used to train AI, they were chosen specifically because they’re smarter than outside contractors.
“It is not strategically in your interest for us to communicate everything in all the detail that we normally would on this,” Zuckerberg said. In one meeting, Zuckerberg managed to confirm the surveillance, justify it, and defend the secrecy around it.
While the job cuts hit multiple departments, Zuckerberg appears to have sought to stabilise internal morale by signaling an end to broad, company-wide staff reductions for the foreseeable future. Multiple reports claimed that ahead of the May 20 job cuts, the morale of several employees was down.
Meta begins global layoffs of 8,000 staff members
Meta started laying off employees across its global offices, with workers in Singapore reporting termination emails landing in their inboxes as early as 4am local time, as per a Bloomberg report. In an internal memo, Meta's Head of People Janelle Gale explained the company's thinking behind the restructuring.
“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,” Gale wrote. “We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding,” she added.
Meta told employees to work from home
Ahead of the May 20 layoffs, Meta employees were told to work from home as the layoffs rolled out. The company also reassigned around 7,000 employees to new AI-focused teams working on products and AI agents.
The cuts are expected to mainly affect Meta's engineering and product teams even as Zuckerberg makes AI company's top priority. The company is competing with rivals such as Google and OpenAI. The company is expected to spend more than $100 billion on Al-related capital expenditure this year alone. The company also surveilled employees systems.
Days before Meta started laying off 8,000 people, Mark Zuckerberg gathered his employees for an all-hands meeting and told them that their computers were being used to train AI, they were chosen specifically because they’re smarter than outside contractors.
“It is not strategically in your interest for us to communicate everything in all the detail that we normally would on this,” Zuckerberg said. In one meeting, Zuckerberg managed to confirm the surveillance, justify it, and defend the secrecy around it.
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