Meta planning sweeping layoffs as AI costs mount

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/meta-planning-sweeping-layoffs-ai-costs-mount-2026-03-14/

37 Comments

  1. So they hope it might create efficiencies. But in reality, they can’t afford the staff and the data centers at the same time.

  2. perilous_times on

    I feel like a lot of these companies had some poor business planning around AI. They went all in on it but underestimated the cost and speed of development.

  3. sentencevillefonny on

    I was laid off last month (@Meta on an AI related project)…we literally JUST had layoffs. This is wild…but there was definitely that weird aura that everything around was falling apart

  4. I have friends who were just hired there after
    Months of job hunting. What is the point of not enacting a hiring freeze if you’re just going to lay people off.

  5. AmethystOrator on

    > If Meta settles on the 20% figure, the layoffs will be the company’s most ​significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the “year of efficiency.” It employed nearly 79,000 people as ​of December 31, according to its latest filing.

    > The company laid off 11,000 staffers in November 2022, or around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs.

    Just more “efficiency”, nothing to see here. /s

  6. Article mentions Amazon as an example of layoffs due to AI but just a couple days ago Amazon said they were reviewing their AI use and that junior/mid level software engineers would need seniors approval before merging AI generated changes. This of course follows a series of outages across their services.

  7. SpiderSlitScrotums on

    If they need to raise money they could start selling all the hardware they’ve been hoarding.

  8. About to be a lot of “ex meta” people in LinkedIn, like that’s some badge of honor anyway.

  9. Meta hit me up in recruiting 3 weeks ago. I said no thanks— y’all just laid people off. And here we go again.

  10. Zuck is not good at business. VR, Metaverse, AI. Dude is so desperate to claim the next “thing” after cell phones that’s he’s wasted billions.

    He’s at the mercy of Apple and Google and it grinds his gears.

  11. anaveragebest on

    Wait I’ve seen this one before! It was the:

    1500 laid off on 1/13/2026

    No wait…it must have been the:

    600 laid off 10/22/2025

    …no my memory…it’s very bad it must have been the one on:

    100 laid off in 4/24/2025

    CRAP. that’s not it either, was it the:

    3600 laid off in 2/10/2025

    ….ahhh forget it, I’ll never remember.

  12. The problem is Layoffs don’t fix the fundamental problem with the AI business, it makes literally no money and there’s really no clear line of sight to when its going to start making ***real*** money. Like AWS/Azure money.

    Zuckerberg already said it I believe in the summer of last year, he’s willing to lose tens of billions of dollars on this because he believes that not being in the game is worse than playing catchup if AI does take over the world and better than saving tens of billions of dollars.

    But since his control over Meta is absolute, no one is going to question him on it.

    The cold hard reality is that Meta is a advertising business. Just like Google. Personally if I’m an ad buyer, I’m questioning the value that AI provides me relative to the increased cost. That and I’m looking at my marketing budget as the world economy seems like its about to hit the shitter and only 5% of the US consumer base is keeping their spending the same/increasing it.

    That’s what I’d be more worried about if I was Zuck.

  13. Alert_Lettuce_8278 on

    With all things considered, I don’t understand how Meta has as many employees as it does and still manages to deliver shitty products across the board. The only good products they have they purchased and then made worse.

    It makes me uneasy to think about where their real revenue sources come from.

    Here’s the thing though, valuations are tied to the core USD at this point. The USD is going to fall hard if any one of these companies starts to fail, it’s a house of cards right now propped up by growing unsustainable debt.

  14. Fuck that! How about the executives take ownership of their fucking awful investments and forego bonuses that could probably save 5-10% of those cuts in equivalent salary costs.

  15. Low_Engineering_3301 on

    The only thing people cared about less than their metaverse was their meta AI.

  16. Gotta pay for all that AI headhunting last year and those 1B contracts! Insane amount of layoffs!

  17. Zestyclose_Koala_593 on

    I dont work in tech but i feel like a lot of these big tech alumni are going to start over with new careers and infiltrate the job market, making it super hard for everyone else who is still looking for work but doesnt have as flashy name like Meta on their resume.

  18. pickleback11 on

    Is their address really “1 hacker way”? That’s so pathetic and lame it’s embarrassing 

  19. Neat-Bridge3754 on

    Good. Meta is a shit company that makes the world a worse place.

    I feel bad for the individuals, but love to see any company hemorrhaging money because of worthless AI bullshit. Any company dumb enough to buy into the lie of AI deserves to fail.

  20. someguywitheaphone on

    Remember when it was layoffs because of AI productivity? Now it’s AI cost

  21. Soon Meta is just gonna be Zuckerberg, an Oculus headset and a fleshlight named America

  22. Funny how all these tech companies seem to be laying off employees while pushing AI. Can’t wait for the AI bubble to shit the bed and these fools lose everything