Hundreds of Meta employees in the Bay Area will wake up Wednesday to learn they’ve been laid off. 

The Menlo Park-based company told staff Monday that it plans to lay off 10% of its global workforce. Staffers in North America were instructed to work from home Wednesday, when notices will go out starting at 4 a.m. PT.

In an internal post Monday, the company said that in addition to the layoffs, it plans to reassign 7,000 staffers to teams working on AI products, while “many leaders will announce org changes, including some reorgs that align more with AI native design principles.” 

“We believe this will make us more productive and make the work more rewarding,” said the post, which was seen by The Standard. 

The cuts at Meta, which were first reported in March (opens in new tab) by Reuters, exemplify the impact AI is expected to have on jobs and the wider economy. Already this year, Amazon announced that it’s laying off 16,000 workers (opens in new tab), while Oracle cut 30,000 (opens in new tab). Block, the fintech company behind Square, with a market value of $40 billion, cut 40% (opens in new tab) of its staff in February, citing changes due to AI. LinkedIn (opens in new tab) announced layoffs earlier this month; WARN notices confirmed (opens in new tab) hundreds of job cuts at the social media company. 

A LinkedIn employee who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her job said the company, which also had a round of layoffs in May 2025, has not made the total number of cuts public. The mood at the company is “dark,” the employee said, and “people are kind of exhausted.” 

“A lot of the teams are still dealing with the PTSD from last round,” she said. 

Meta does not report how many people it employs in the Bay Area, but public WARN notices show that it plans to eliminate at least 500 jobs in the region. The social media giant has been one of the most attractive Silicon Valley employers for more than a decade, thanks to high pay, cushy benefits, and the success of products like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. 

But more recently, hiring in the region has wilted even as AI investment has boomed, with layoffs becoming a more regular occurrence at Big Tech companies since 2022, following the pandemic and amid rising interest rates. 

Meta employees told The Standard that the prospect of the layoffs, the largest in the company’s history, has left them reeling. Many are so distracted they’ve barely been able to work.

“I am anxious and frustrated,” said one employee who was hired only two months ago but felt certain Tuesday that their job was not safe. “Leadership has made it clear everyone is at risk,” the employee said, adding that they would likely get no sleep Tuesday night and would have to fight the urge to wake up at 4 a.m. to find out if they’d received the fateful email.

Not everyone is dreading losing their job.

“I am hoping for it. I never intended to stay in tech this long, but the golden handcuffs thing is real,” said one Meta employee who asked to remain anonymous. “I’d happily take the severance and go do anything else with my life.”

She said many of her coworkers are doing minimal work. They’re updating résumés, drinking together, and planning trips for this weekend — one plans to get stoned at a nudist hang outside of the city.

“The returns of working in Big Tech have diminished significantly in recent years, probably more so at Meta than anywhere else,” said the employee. “It’s become increasingly difficult to ignore or rationalize the negative impact these companies and their executives have on our world.”

Not all of her colleagues can afford to lose their jobs. Many are the sole breadwinners for their families or are worried about visas. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dreading what comes next if they’re left behind.

According to the internal post, the restructuring will allow Meta to focus on new AI-focused teams that the company described as “important to our future success.” They include Applied AI Engineering, Agent Transformation Accelerator, and a new Enterprise Solutions team. Some of these have worked on products like Muse Spark, an AI model Meta launched this year. 

Meta declined to comment.

U.S. employees who are laid off will receive 16 weeks of pay in addition to a severance amount based on their years of service, according to an internal memo sent around Meta a month ago. They’ll receive healthcare coverage through COBRA for 18 months.

“We will also offer career services to support people in finding another role and immigration support for those who need it,” said the memo, which The Standard obtained. 

Job cuts aren’t the only way the AI race is affecting tech workers. 

Meta employees have been facing pressure to increase individual AI usage, which is tracked using internal metrics, according to Reuters (opens in new tab). Amazon employees are reportedly (opens in new tab) facing similar requirements, according to The Financial Times. Meanwhile, companies are training large language models on old Slack data, Forbes (opens in new tab) reported, and xAI employees have been asked to share personal tax data with Grok for training, Bloomberg reported this week.