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Meta Layoffs 2026: Tech Giant Plans To Sack 16,000 Employees Amid Massive AI Spending Push, Says Report
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Meta Layoffs 2026: Over the past year, Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing the company to compete aggressively in the generative AI race.
Mark Zuckerberg announced a major restructuring during the “year of efficiency” in 2022 and early 2023.
Meta Layoffs 2026: US-based tech giant Meta is planning extensive layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its workforce, which is nearly 16,000 employees, as the company looks to offset the rising cost of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and improve efficiency through AI-assisted operations, according to a Reuters report.
However, the report said that no timeline has been finalised for the potential job cuts and the scale of layoffs is still under discussion.
According to the report citing people familiar with the matter, senior executives have recently signalled the plans to other leaders and asked them to begin preparing for workforce reductions.
Responding to queries, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said: “This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.”
Layoffs could affect nearly 16,000 employees
Meta had nearly 79,000 employees as of December 31, according to the company’s latest regulatory filing.
If the company proceeds with a 20% reduction, the layoffs could impact around 16,000 workers. That would make it the largest workforce reduction at the company since Mark Zuckerberg announced a major restructuring during the “year of efficiency” in 2022 and early 2023.
Meta had laid off about 11,000 employees in November 2022, roughly 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, the company announced another round of job cuts affecting nearly 10,000 employees.
Massive push into generative AI
Over the past year, Zuckerberg has been pushing the company to compete aggressively in the generative AI race.
Meta has been offering lucrative compensation packages — some reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years — to attract top AI researchers to its newly created superintelligence team.
The company has also said it plans to invest as much as $600 billion to build data centre infrastructure by 2028 to support its AI ambitions.
Earlier this week, Meta acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform designed for AI agents. The company is also reportedly spending at least $2 billion to acquire a Chinese artificial intelligence startup called Manus.
Zuckerberg has also hinted that AI could significantly improve productivity. In January, he said he was already seeing “projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.”
AI setbacks and new model plans
Meta’s aggressive AI push follows setbacks with its Llama 4 models last year. The company faced criticism for providing misleading benchmark results for early versions of the model.
It also shelved the release of the largest version of the model, called Behemoth, which had been expected to launch in the summer.
Meta’s superintelligence team is now working on a new model called Avocado to improve its AI capabilities, although the performance of the system has reportedly fallen short of expectations so far, delaying its release.
In January, Amazon confirmed it would cut about 16,000 jobs, representing nearly 10% of its workforce.
Last month, fintech company Block also slashed nearly half of its staff, with CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to advances in AI tools that allow companies to operate with smaller teams.
March 14, 2026, 08:13 IST
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