Meta axes thousands of roles, forcibly transfers 7,000 more

AI + ML

Staff protest overhaul and mouse tracking at ‘Employee Data Extraction Factory’

Meta’s massive role reshuffle begins today, with thousands of staff being transferred to AI-focused teams and their managers reportedly laid off.

The tech giant is reassigning 7,000 workers to AI projects, eliminating around 10 percent of its current workforce, and closing 6,000 open positions, according to Reuters, which saw copies of the internal memos.

The workforce changes, the latest in a series of moves that started 2022, will affect roughly 20 percent of Meta’s approximately 78,000 employees.

Janelle Gale, Meta’s chief people officer, penned the memos to affected staff. Some have already begun their new AI-related duties, while the rest will be told of their fates today, she reportedly said.

“As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI-native design principles ⁠into their new org structures,” Gale’s memo read. 

“We’re now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership.”

This flatter structure will involve, in part, managers being either laid off or moved into roles where they are producing work instead of overseeing teams.

Previous memos sent to staff in April stated that top engineers – those who represented the company’s “strong software engineering talent” – were being “selected” for brand-new divisions within the business.

Among these were the Applied AI Engineering and Agent Transformation Accelerator units, as well as Central Analytics.

Once famed for letting its staff pick and choose their projects, Meta said those selected for this new AI mission had no say in the matter.

Responding to an employee’s question, Maher Saba, VP of AAI Engineering, wrote: “AAI is one of the company’s highest priorities and we’re resourcing it by moving our strongest talent to address it. Therefore, the transfers aren’t optional.”

Both AI units were established for engineers to develop AI agents capable of automating and taking over duties previously undertaken by human employees.

Those transferred to Central Analytics will work on ways of assessing productivity and analytics for agent development.

According to Gale’s memo, another new unit called Enterprise Solutions will soon be established, but Meta has not yet revealed details. The Register asked Meta for a statement, but it did not immediately respond.

The Great Flattening

Gale’s language regarding “flatter structures” echoes chief Mark Zuckerberg’s wording from Meta’s January earnings report, promising to flatten teams over the coming year.

“We’re elevating individual contributors, and flattening teams,” Zuck wrote in a post-earnings note on January 28. “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person. 

“I want to make sure as many of these very talented people as possible choose Meta as the place they can make the greatest impact – to deliver personalized products to billions of people around the world. And if we do this, then I think we’ll get a lot more done and it’s going to be a lot more fun.”

Reports surfaced around the same time about a major round of job cuts at the company, equivalent to 20 percent of its workforce, or around 15,000 roles, but it was unclear when or if this would materialize.

Meta’s latest round of layoffs follows a smaller-scale round in March, affecting 700 roles across Reality Labs, the social media division, and recruitment.

The changes come against a backdrop of Meta investing heavily in AI, with the company saying it plans to spend between $162 billion and $167 billion this year, up from $118 billion in 2025.

The company has reportedly also tried tempting top AI talent to join its ranks with nine-figure pay packets, and ex-OpenAI players with $100 million sign-on bonuses.

The revolt

Meta slashing roles to embrace AI replacements has led to protests across its Menlo Park HQ and internal Workspace comms platform, Reuters reports.

First announced in April, Meta said it would be tracking mouse clicks and keystrokes to train AI rather than assess staff productivity.

A company spokesperson told the BBC: “If we’re building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them.”

They said the data is not used for any other purpose, and there are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content.

But Meta staff have expressed their disdain for the changes in various ways, including by setting up an online petition – which now has over 1,000 signatures – and plastering flyers all over US offices referring to the company as an “Employee Data Extraction Factory.” ®