Meta Cuts 8,000 Jobs and Cancels 6,000 Open Roles as $135B AI Infrastructure Spending Reshapes Workforce

Meta will lay off approximately 8,000 employees — 10% of its 78,865-person global workforce — beginning May 20, 2026, while cancelling another 6,000 open requisitions for an effective headcount reduction of 14,000. Additional cuts are planned for H2 2026, potentially reaching 20% of the pre-2026 workforce. The layoffs are explicitly structural rather than performance-based, reorganizing teams into AI-focused 'pods' under Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang's Superintelligence Labs. The tradeoff is driven by Meta's projected $115-135 billion in AI infrastructure spending for 2026, up from $72.2 billion in 2025. This is the third wave of 2026 layoffs at Meta following 1,000 cuts in Reality Labs in January and 700 more across multiple divisions in March. Cumulative reductions since 2022 exceed 33,000 jobs. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that 2026 is 'the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.'