The day that Meta employees have dreaded for a month is here.
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Emails have begun going out to roughly 10% of Meta’s 78,000 employees, notifying them that they are being laid off. The notifications are being sent in three waves at 4 a.m. local time on May 20 across different regions, according to a memo that Meta HR chief Janelle Gale sent to an employee resource group on Monday.
The layoffs are expected to eliminate around 8,000 roles.
US employees will receive a severance package including 16 weeks — or four months — in base pay, plus two weeks for every year of continuous employment, according to an internal document seen by Business Insider.
They’ll also get 18 months of healthcare coverage for themselves and their families — triple the previous amount — as Business Insider previously reported.
Impacted employees outside the US will receive similar packages that vary by country.
Fintech company Block recently gave recently laid-off employees 20 weeks of salary plus one additional week per year of tenure and six months of healthcare. Amazon gave staff three months of full pay and healthcare benefits, plus an additional severance package.
In the Monday memo, HR chief Gale added that managerial positions would be cut across the company to create flatter organizational structures.
“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,” she wrote.
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Employees in limbo
At an internal meeting last month, Meta’s HR chief Janelle Gale said morale had taken a hit due to the looming layoffs, and that the tech giant was doing its best to make a “shitty” situation “the best version possible,” adding that COBRA coverage had been tripled.
Since Meta first announced the coming layoffs on April 23, employees have been working in a state of limbo, unsure of their fate at the company. Meta said at the time in an internal memo that the job cuts would help the company run “more efficiently” and offset investments.
Meta also plans to move more than 7,000 people to work on new initiatives around AI. Gale told staff that leaders across the company will announce organizational changes alongside the layoffs.
Meta is spending billions in the AI race and in April forecast its 2026 capital expenditures to range from $125 billion to $145 billion.
Meta leaders told staff they are not ruling out further job cuts beyond this Wednesday’s 10% round, Business Insider previously reported.
