Meta to start laying off 3,000 employees today as company shifts focus to AI hiring

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is set to begin company-wide layoffs on Tuesday across multiple countries as part of its push to expedite hiring for machine learning engineers, according to internal memos sent to employees on Friday.

One of the memos, authored by Meta's head of people Janelle Gale, stated that notices, including those for employees in the US, were expected to be sent by Monday at 5am local time. Workers in Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands will be exempt from the layoffs “due to local regulations", while employees in over a dozen other countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa will receive their notifications between February 11 and February 18, the memo mentioned.