Meta Platforms has initiated a fresh round of layoffs across its global offices, with employees in Singapore among the first to receive termination notifications. According to a Bloomberg report, thousands of workers worldwide began receiving layoff emails early Wednesday morning. Workers in Singapore reported receiving the notifications as early as 4 AM local time on Wednesday. Employees in Europe and the United States are also expected to receive similar messages in their respective time zones.
Internal memo details restructuring rationale
In an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg, Meta's Head of People, Janelle Gale, explained the company's reasoning 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.
Work-from-home directive and team reassignments
Ahead of the May 20 layoffs, Meta encouraged employees to work from home as the job cuts were implemented. The company has also reassigned approximately 7,000 employees to new AI-focused teams working on products and AI agents. The layoffs are expected to primarily affect Meta's engineering and product teams. Bloomberg reported that additional layoffs could occur later this year as the company continues to reshape its workforce around artificial intelligence projects. Meta had nearly 80,000 employees at the end of March before the latest restructuring and layoffs began.
AI spending and investor concerns
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made artificial intelligence the company's top priority as Meta competes with rivals such as Google and OpenAI. The company is expected to spend more than $100 billion on AI-related capital expenditure this year alone. Bloomberg reported that Meta employees have increasingly raised concerns over layoffs and internal AI-related changes. More than 1,000 employees have reportedly signed a petition asking the company not to collect detailed device activity data, including keystrokes and screen content, for AI training purposes.
Investors have also expressed concerns about Meta's massive AI spending. According to Evercore analysts cited in the Bloomberg report, the latest layoffs may save the company about $3 billion, which is only a small fraction of Meta's projected AI spending that could reach $145 billion this year.
