Ireland is facing renewed concern over the impact of big tech layoffs after Meta confirmed plans to cut 10 per cent of its global workforce, as part of a major push into artificial intelligence.
The move will see roughly 8,000 employees laid off, alongside the closure of a further 6,000 open roles, according to an internal memo. Meta—parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp—employed more than 78,000 people at the end of 2025.
The cuts come as CEO Mark Zuckerberg ramps up investment in AI, with the company spending tens of billions to compete with rivals including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.
In a message to staff, Meta’s chief people officer Janelle Gale said the layoffs are part of a broader efficiency drive.
“We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” she said. “This is not an easy trade-off and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here.”
The announcement is likely to raise concerns in Ireland, where Meta employs thousands of staff across its European headquarters in Dublin, making it one of the State’s largest multinational employers.
Zuckerberg has been explicit about the role AI will play in reshaping the company—and the wider tech sector. He has suggested that many traditional roles, particularly in software development, could eventually be replaced or heavily augmented by AI-powered systems.
“We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person,” he said earlier this year.
Meta will notify employees who are being laid off on May 20.
Meta is pouring vast resources into the shift, with spending expected to reach between $115 billion and $135 billion (€106bn–€124bn) this year—almost double the $72 billion (€66bn) it spent in 2025. Much of that investment is going into data centres, advanced chips and recruiting top AI talent, including a multibillion-dollar deal with Scale AI and the appointment of its CEO Alexandr Wang to lead a new “superintelligence” lab.
The layoffs also reflect a broader trend across the tech industry. Earlier this year, Microsoft said it would offer buyouts to around 7 per cent of its workforce, while financial technology firm Block announced plans to cut as much as 40 per cent of its staff as it pivots towards AI tools.
For Meta, the cuts mark another step in a multi-year effort to shrink its workforce after rapid expansion during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company peaked at more than 87,000 employees in 2022, before launching a sweeping restructuring programme in 2023 that eliminated roughly one-third of its staff.
Internally, the company has increasingly pushed employees to adopt AI tools in their day-to-day work, even incorporating their use into performance reviews. It has also scaled back other divisions, including cuts of around 10 per cent in its Reality Labs unit, which focuses on virtual and augmented reality.
Employees affected by the latest layoffs are expected to be notified from May 20, with severance packages offered based on tenure.
“I know this is unwelcome news,” Gale added in the memo. “But we feel this is the best path forward, given the circumstances.”
With Ireland heavily reliant on multinational tech firms for employment and tax revenue, the scale of Meta’s latest cuts—and the wider shift towards AI—are likely to intensify debate about the future stability of the sector and its workforce.
