Meta Is Cutting Up to 15,000 Jobs as AI Spending Doubles and Workforce Strategy Shifts

Meta Platforms laid off several hundred employees across five divisions in late March 2026, CNBC confirmed, and is separately weighing a far larger reduction that could eliminate up to 20% of its global workforce, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Credit: AP Photo/Nic Coury, File

If the larger cuts proceed, they would affect roughly 15,000 to 16,000 of the company's nearly 79,000 employees and rank as the biggest layoff in Meta's history.

The March 25 cuts hit employees across Meta's recruiting, sales, global operations, Facebook social, and Reality Labs divisions, according to a source familiar with the company's plans who asked not to be named because they were confidential.

Some employees were offered new roles or relocation options. The cuts affected fewer than 1,000 employees across the company's divisions, TechCrunch reported.

A Meta spokesperson said in a statement:

"Teams across Meta regularly restructure or implement changes to ensure they're in the best position to achieve their goals. Where possible, we are finding other opportunities for employees whose positions may be impacted."

The March cuts were the second round of 2026 reductions at the company.

In January, Meta laid off 10% of its Reality Labs staff, with the New York Times reporting the cuts affected roughly 1,000 employees out of a total Reality Labs workforce of about 15,000.

Reports of a potential 20% workforce reduction sent Meta's stock climbing nearly 3% on the day the news surfaced, as investors interpreted the potential cuts as a sign of cost discipline amid the company's rapidly expanding AI spending.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone described the claims in the Reuters report as "speculative," stating that no final decisions had been announced.

The 15,000-figure has been reported by multiple outlets but remains unconfirmed by the company.

Meta disclosed in its fourth-quarter earnings that its AI-related capital expenditure for 2026 would fall between $115 billion and $135 billion, roughly double the amount spent in 2025.

The company has also committed to investing up to $600 billion in infrastructure by 2028, primarily for AI data centers and computing clusters.

In a January Facebook post following the release of Meta's fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:

"We're starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person."

Analysts at Jefferies wrote in a research note that if Meta reduces headcount at this scale while ramping AI investment, it "signals a broader shift:

AI is increasingly driving productivity," adding that the cuts "are clearly being considered in part to offset rising AI infrastructure costs with significant AI-driven capex ramp." 

Beyond the layoffs, a leaked internal document reviewed by Business Insider revealed a parallel restructuring effort.

Meta is piloting a program within its Reality Labs division, affecting a team of 1,000 employees, that would rebrand workers as "AI builders" and reorganize them into smaller "AI-native pods," with new title tiers including AI builder, AI pod lead, and AI org lead. TheStreet

A viral post on X cited additional unverified internal targets, claiming that Meta expects 65% of its engineers to write 75% or more of their code using AI by mid-2026, with specific targets as high as 55% AI-assisted code changes across products like Messenger, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

The American Bazaar Meta has not confirmed these figures.

Meta is not alone in this pattern.

Amazon eliminated 16,000 roles in January.

Block, led by Jack Dorsey, cut 4,000 employees in February to enable the firm "to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work."

Atlassian announced it was cutting 10% of its workforce, or 1,600 employees, directing investments into AI instead. CNBC

According to a survey from Resume.org, roughly 55% of U.S. companies plan layoffs in 2026, with AI cited as the leading reason for job cuts by 44% of respondents, ahead of reorganization at 42% and budget pressure at 39%. TheStreet

Meta's Reality Labs division, which houses its virtual reality and augmented reality work, recorded an operating loss of $6.02 billion on $955 million in sales in 2025, and the company projected in its quarterly earnings that operating losses in 2026 would run at similar levels.