Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has set a date for its next major restructuring: A wave of mass layoffs will begin on May 20th. which will affect thousands of employees worldwide. The company, which has been restructuring its internal operations for years, is thus taking another step in its strategy to aggressively prioritize artificial intelligence compared to other business areas.
According to various reports by Reuters and other specialized media outlets, the technology company anticipates cut around 10% of its global workforce In this first phase, this translates to approximately 8.000 fewer jobs out of a workforce of roughly 79.000. The cuts will not be limited to that day: management has already hinted that it is considering further reductions. new rounds of layoffs in the second half of the year, conditioned on the evolution of their AI projects.
A first wave of cuts on May 20
According to several internal sources cited by Reuters, Meta has set the May 20th as the start date of the first round of layoffs of this year. That day will mark the visible start of an adjustment that the company has been preparing for months and that could be extended through progressive departures for low performance, less replacement of vacancies and flattening of hierarchical levels.
In this first round, the company will do without around 8.000 employees, about 10% of the global workforceThe cuts will affect teams that are not considered essential for the immediate development of artificial intelligence products and tools, as well as middle management that the company sees as redundant layers within its new organizational philosophy.
The firm has already carried out in recent months partial adjustments in divisions such as Reality Labs (virtual reality and metaverse), recruitment, sales, and global operations, as well as certain areas of Facebook. Documentation filed with regulators in California has revealed planned layoffs at offices such as Burlingame and Sunnyvale, in addition to the global cuts planned for May.
However, the executives have avoided publicly specifying the full scope of the process. Officially, Meta He declined to comment on the details of the schedule and the exact magnitude. of the cuts, which in any case are among the most significant in its recent history.
Internally, the message conveyed to the staff is that the May 20th will be a significant milestone, but not necessarily the end of the adjustment.Some leaks on anonymous employee forums suggest that the company wants to achieve its staff reduction goals gradually, combining direct layoffs with stricter performance evaluations.
A team in transformation: from Reality Labs to "Applied AI"
The bulk of the restructuring is not limited to reducing staff. Meta is carrying out a thorough redesign of its organizational chart to pour resources into artificial intelligence, leaving projects that were strategic just a few years ago, such as the metaverse, in the background.
In recent weeks, the company has reorganized teams within Reality LabsThe division responsible for virtual reality glasses and metaverse initiatives, which had already been accumulating significant operating losses, has seen some of its staff, as well as engineers from other departments, transferred to a new internal structure called "Applied AI."
This new organization's mission is to accelerate the development of AI agents capable of writing code and performing complex tasks autonomouslyThis is an area where Meta competes directly with other giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Internal goals include increasing the use of AI-assisted coding tools among the company's own developers.
Alongside that movement, the leadership has created Meta Small Business, a unit focused on SMEs which will absorb some of the employees reassigned as a result of the restructuring. With these types of changes, the company is trying to redeploy some employees whose original roles are disappearing or becoming less important compared to AI priorities.
The idea that is repeated in internal messages and presentations to investors is that of a flatter organization, with fewer hierarchical levels and smaller teams, which rely on artificial intelligence tools to multiply their productivity. Projects that previously required dozens of people, Meta argues, could now be handled by a very small number of highly specialized professionals assisted by AI.
From the "year of efficiency" to the new wave of layoffs
The cuts on May 20 are part of a long-standing restructuring process. In 2022 and 2023, the company experienced what its own CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, dubbed the "Year of Efficiency"Then, Meta eliminated around 21.000 jobs in several waves, coinciding with a sharp drop in its shares and the correction of growth forecasts inflated during the pandemic.
Those layoffs, which resulted in the departure of 13% of the workforce in a single round and further cuts in subsequent months, were attributed to overhiring during the COVID eraWhen the boom in e-commerce and digital consumption led the company to oversize its structure, Zuckerberg even publicly acknowledged that he had been wrong to anticipate that this growth would be permanent.
This time, the context is different. Meta is entering a new round of layoffs in a clearly more comfortable financial situationWith annual revenues exceeding $200.000 billion and profits around $60.000 billion, despite much higher capital expenditures, its shares have seen strong gains in recent years, although they remain below some recent highs.
The key difference is the engine that drives the cut: the massive investment in artificial intelligenceThe company has communicated to the markets a range of capital expenditure for this year and the following years that is between $115.000 billion and $135.000 billion, a figure that practically doubles the levels of the previous fiscal year and that eclipses the previous investment in virtual reality and metaverse.
This investment effort is financed, in part, through a aggressive staff reduction and intensive use of automation in internal processes. For Meta, it's about redirecting its budget and talent towards what management considers the next big technology platform: more powerful AI models, advanced virtual assistants, and algorithm-driven social experiences.
Global wave of tech layoffs and its effect on Europe
Meta's move didn't happen in a vacuum. Meanwhile, other major tech companies, such as Pinterest, they have announced job cuts of similar magnitude, also linked to the rise of artificial intelligence and the search for greater operational efficiency.
According to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, a platform that closely tracks layoffs in the technology sector, Tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs in just a few months. globally. In just the first few months of the year, the figures are already approaching those of all of 2024, when around 153.000 layoffs were recorded in the sector.
In Europe and Spain, where Meta and other large technology companies maintain relevant workplaces in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Dublin or LondonThe impact is being analyzed with particular attention. Although the company has not publicly detailed the geographical distribution of the upcoming layoffs, European unions and labor authorities are closely monitoring the process, aware that many of these global adjustments end up affecting their regional offices.
At the same time, European governments are trying to attract some of the massive investment in AI infrastructure Multinational corporations anticipate this shift, whether through data centers, development hubs, or public-private partnerships. This dual trend—more investment in technology, less traditional employment—is generating intense debate about the types of jobs that will be created and the profile of workers who will be able to fill them.
Investment in AI, internal tensions, and doubts about the future of work
Meta's roadmap for the coming years can be summed up in one idea: pouring resources into artificial intelligence on an unprecedented scaleThe company is competing to position itself at the forefront of the global race for advanced language models, automated content generation, and agents capable of operating almost autonomously.
To sustain this effort, the company is reorienting its cost structure towards the mass purchase of specialized hardwaresuch as graphics processing units (GPUs), and are focusing on hiring highly specialized professionals in AI, machine learning, and technical infrastructure. Even while announcing layoffs, Meta continues to post job openings for these key positions.
This strategy, however, coexists with a growing Concern among employees about the stability of their jobsIn internal forums and anonymous platforms, some workers describe a more competitive climate, with greater pressure to demonstrate quick results and to adapt to the intensive use of AI tools in their daily work.
In messages sent to staff and public statements, the company insists that the teams are They regularly reorganize to "be in the best position" With regard to its strategic objectives, the company assures that it will try to offer internal alternatives to those affected by role changes. Even so, the volume of planned cuts makes it clear that not all positions will find a new home.
The Meta case has quickly become a a symbol of how the race for artificial intelligence can transform employment in big technology companiesLarge capital investments, leaner structures, reduced workforces, and a growing reliance on work assisted by or directly replaced by algorithms. In this context, May 20th is shaping up to be a key date for both the company's employees and the digital sector as a whole.
Everything points to the The layoffs on May 20 will be just one of the milestones in a longer adjustment.Meta justifies this move as part of its complete shift towards artificial intelligence and its pursuit of a more agile and profitable company. While cuts are piling up and AI investment figures are skyrocketing, the debate about the balance between innovation, profits, and job security is gaining traction in the United States, Spain, Europe, and everywhere a Meta office prepares to determine who will stay and who will be let go.
