Meta Internal Memo: No Company-wide Layoffs Expected This Year

Meta is attempting to stabilize expectations among employees following another round of layoffs. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in an internal memo sent to all employees on May 20th that the company anticipates no more company-wide layoffs for the year.

Meta's latest round of layoffs affected approximately 8,000 global positions, which is about 10% of Meta's nearly 78,000 total employees. Engineering and product teams are expected to be the most impacted.

Zuckerberg wrote in the memo:

”I want to be clear that we currently anticipate no more company-wide layoffs for this year. I acknowledge that we have not achieved the clarity we want in our communication, which is something I am committed to improving."

He also referred to AI as "the most influential technology of our lifetime" and stated that the companies that lead this field will define the next generation of computing platforms. This implies that Meta will continue to concentrate its resources on the AI domain.

It's worth noting that prior to this round of layoffs, Meta had already reassigned about 7,000 employees to newly established AI-related teams. This indicates that the company is not merely reducing headcount but is systematically shifting resources towards core areas of future growth.

Previously, the Official Layoff account had posted a leaked all-hands meeting audio where Zuckerberg revealed that Meta is training AI models by tracking employees' work devices, as the company believes that Meta employees can provide higher-quality task samples compared to external data labeling contractors.

In that audio, Zuckerberg stated that Meta hopes AI will learn "how really smart people use computers" by observing employees' ways of working. However, the controversy lies in the fact that Meta did not fully inform employees from the beginning—Zuckerberg acknowledged the issues with the rollout of this arrangement but also stated that the company intentionally did not disclose all the details as usual, since leaking competitive AI strategies would benefit competitors.