Meta will lay off 10% of its staff

Business Meta will lay off 10% of its staff April 23, 20264:10 PM ET John Ruwitch Workers walk past a display at Meta headquarters on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Menlo Park, Calif. Noah Berger/FR34727 AP hide caption toggle caption Noah Berger/FR34727 AP Meta will lay off 10% of its staff in May, according to an internal memo which was published by Bloomberg. A Meta spokesperson confirmed the report's accuracy to NPR. The layoffs will take place on May 20 and affect some 8,000 workers. Meta will also not hire for 6,000 open roles that it had intended to fill. In the memo, Meta's chief people officer Janelle Gale wrote, "We're doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making. This is not an easy tradeoff and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here." Sponsor Message Calling it "unwelcome news" that "puts everyone in an uneasy state," Gale wrote, confirming the layoffs to employees now "is the best path forward, given the circumstances." Meta and other big players in artificial intelligence have been spending vast amounts of money to build data centers and try to win the AI race — one in which Meta lags behind competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. In January, Meta forecast record capital expenditures this year of up to $135 billion — almost double what it spent last year. Business What's next for Meta in the wake of trial losses and layoffs? The pivot to AI comes at a time when Meta seems to be backing away from its previous focus on its virtual reality Metaverse products. The Metaverse was once key to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the company's future — so fundamental that in 2021, he changed the name of the company from Facebook to Meta. In a separate round of layoffs this month, the company announced that it was laying off some 700 people as part of its efforts in "right-sizing" its investment in R...