Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
- Meta previously announced it will cut 10% of its staff next month.
- Meta’s HR chief told staff in a meeting that she can’t promise further layoffs won’t happen.
- She added that the business is strong and acknowledged that morale has been affected at Meta.
Meta plans to lay off around 10% of its staff next month, and it told staff it’s not ruling out deeper cuts.
That’s what Janelle Gale, Meta’s chief people officer, told employees in an internal meeting on Thursday, according to three sources on the call.
“Will there be more layoffs? The question always comes up. I’d love to say that there are no more layoffs, but I can’t say something we can’t deliver,” Gale said during the meeting. “While the business is strong, priorities change, competition is fierce, and we will continue to manage our costs responsibly.”
She said this means that Meta will “continue to evolve teams as needed” and “try to redeploy talent.” She pointed to how Meta is investing in its Applied AI organization.
Gale added that some organizations would be more affected by layoffs than others, though she did not specify which.
Meta leaders also said during the meeting that AI token usage would not be considered as a factor for the layoffs.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also addressed the layoffs at the meeting, saying that AI automation is not the driving factor behind them. He said that AI has made small teams far more efficient.
During the call, Zuckerberg also addressed Meta’s plan to monitor employees’ keystrokes and mouse movements to improve its AI models. He said humans are not actually watching what the staff are doing and that this data is abstracted and used to improve AI.
Meta AI Chief Alexandr Wang also appeared at the meeting, sporting a camouflage-pattern T-shirt featuring multiple deer, according to a photo seen by Business Insider. During the Q&A, he praised Meta’s latest AI prowess, notably the recent release of its Spark model.
Meta declined to comment for this article.
Reuters reported in March that Meta plans to cut about 20% of its total staff this year.
Given the looming layoffs, Gale said at the meeting that they hit morale at Meta, and the company tries to make tough situations like that “the best version possible.” She added that Meta has tripled COBRA healthcare coverage to 18 months.
Meta CFO Susan Li previously said during its first quarter earnings call on Wednesday that she “doesn’t really know” the ideal size of the company’s head count, which runs at above 77,000. Meta announced that its infrastructure spend, largely for AI, is doubling this year, to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion.
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