Meta layoffs hit Israel as global restructuring accelerates
Around 10% of local staff to be cut, while hundreds shift into AI units in sweeping reorganization.
The global layoffs at Meta have reached Israel, with about 10% of the company’s local workforce, just over 100 employees, expected to be cut, primarily from its development center. In parallel, roughly 200 employees are expected to be transferred into Meta’s AI-focused units as part of a broader restructuring, while several dozen mid-level management roles will be eliminated as the company flattens its organizational structure.
Meta’s latest round of layoffs began early Wednesday morning, with employees at the company’s headquarters in Singapore receiving termination notices at 4 a.m. local time.
The tech giant is expected to cut around 8,000 jobs today, representing roughly 10% of its workforce, as it seeks to reduce costs while sharply increasing investments in AI infrastructure and shifting more aggressively toward AI product development. According to Bloomberg, Meta is also expected to carry out another round of cuts later this year.
On Monday, the company announced that 7,000 employees would be reassigned to new AI-related positions within four newly created work groups. The memo, written by Meta’s chief people officer Janelle Gale, said roughly 7,000 employees would be moved into AI-related initiatives, while many managerial roles would be removed as part of a shift toward flatter, faster-moving teams built around small “pods” or cohorts.
“As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI native design principles into their new org structures,” Gale wrote. “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.”
Meta plans to invest between $115 billion and $135 billion in AI infrastructure this year as part of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s push to strengthen the company’s position in artificial intelligence. Despite its massive spending, Meta is still under pressure from rivals such as Google, which has developed more advanced AI models and moved faster in integrating them into consumer and enterprise products.
Before competing successfully with rival tech giants, however, Zuckerberg may first need to address growing unrest within Meta itself. According to Bloomberg, management demands that engineers increase their use of AI agents, combined with plans to monitor ongoing work and collect data from employee devices to train AI models, have fueled anxiety and frustration inside the company.
More than 1,000 employees have reportedly signed a petition calling on Zuckerberg and Meta management not to collect data from their personal devices. Others have described on social media how fears of layoffs have damaged morale and productivity.
Once the layoffs are complete, Meta’s biggest challenge may be rebuilding trust among the employees who remain and convincing them to embrace a corporate strategy increasingly centered on automation and AI efficiency. That is likely to prove difficult when the success of that strategy could ultimately make many of their own roles obsolete.
