The company is also set to close nearly 6,000 open roles, according to a memo by Janelle Gale, Meta’s Chief People Officer, published by Bloomberg and confirmed by CNN.

The layoffs are expected to take effect on May 20.

“We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” Gale wrote in the memo as quoted by CNN.

Amid reports of the layoffs, Meta’s shares fell more than 2% on Thursday.

Past layoffs and workforce size

In November 2022, Meta cut 11,000 jobs — roughly 13% of its workforce — followed by another 10,000 layoffs four months later.

According to its latest regulatory filing, the company employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31.

Aggressive AI investments

Over the past year, Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more aggressively in the generative AI race.

As part of that strategy, the company has reportedly offered lucrative compensation packages to attract top AI researchers for a new “superintelligence” team focused on developing advanced AI systems.

Meta is also reportedly planning to invest $600 billion in building data centres by 2028.

In addition, the company has taken steps such as acquiring AI-focused platforms and is said to be pursuing multi-billion-dollar deals to further strengthen its artificial intelligence capabilities.