Meta begins laying off 8,000 employees in AI restructuring

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Happening right now, Meta employees are being told to work from home today. The company's laying off 10% of its staff.

[00:00:07]>> This comes as the tech giant's moving to focus on artificial intelligence and consolidate roles. Cron worries Will Tran is live now with latest from Meta headquarters in Menlo Park. Will.

[00:00:22]Joey, it's the fear so many of us have that ultimately AI will take their jobs and that's exactly what's happening to Meta employees. Their fear is now a full-blown nightmare as it's sweeping across the globe. In fact, Meta employees in Asia starting at 4:00 a.m.

[00:00:40]their time, they received notices that they are no longer needed and those notifications will spread across the globe.

[00:00:48]It should happen sometime this morning as far as the Meta employees behind me and across the United States.

[00:00:54]Ultimately, 10% of the workforce, 80,000 altogether, 10% of them by the end of today no longer needed because Meta is spending more time and billions of dollars more on AI, learning about it, developing it. And when I say learning about it, what I mean is the employees that are still on the job, well, they're being closely watched because they want to learn about the tendencies and what they do and then those tendencies, those characteristics will be passed along to AI. They AI will ultimately do their jobs. We are talking employees that are still on the job and employees that should be on the job but won't be. What I mean by that is Meta was planning earlier this year to approximately hire 6,000 employees. Well, that's off the books as well as AI is sweeping the globe. Companies like OpenAI and Google, severe competitors for Meta and they want to keep up as well. So, they are focusing on that. Those who still have jobs, two things are happening to them, guys. One, those are being told to stay home, work from home today, and then about 7,000 employees, they still have jobs, but they will be transferred to other places within Meta to focus more on AI initiatives. So, lots going on as far as AI, but ultimately by the end of the day, 8,000 employees and Meta is such a huge workforce in the Bay Area.

[00:02:28]It will be devastating to them and their families, and ultimately, it will ripple through the Bay Area economy because if they don't have jobs, of course, unfortunately, they cannot spend, and that hurts us all.

[00:02:41]Back to you. Yeah, I mean, Meta's been doing layoffs over the last couple of years, too. So, this is a huge hit, for sure. Will, thank you.