The global restructuring of Meta (Marc Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram giant) began on Wednesday 20 May. The plan involves the dismissal of 8 thousand employees and the shift of another 7 thousand to jobs related to artificial intelligence. The first measures arrived via email at the Singapore office at 4 am local time, and were then extended to offices in the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries. In Italy, as reported by Wired with sources close to the matter, the layoffs will affect 33 people.
The impact of restructuring in Italy
The 33 redundancies expected in Italy are part of a total workforce of 116 employees. The company justified the decision with the need to start a reorganization linked to the introduction of artificial intelligence. The number is not yet official: the effectiveness of the cuts will depend on the outcome of the collective consultation procedure with the competent authorities and trade unions, which Meta has already started in accordance with Italian laws. The company communicated that “all obligations under national legislation will be respected”, as happened in previous restructuring steps.
The most affected sectors and internal monitoring
The global cuts are primarily focused on teams managing cybersecurity, content design and the division integritywhich deals with moderation, countering misinformation, managing spam and preventing abuse. In the weeks before the plan was launched, the atmosphere within the company had already become tense after software for monitoring mouse clicks and movements was installed on employees’ computers. In the same period, news emerged of a 10 percent cut in the overall workforce. Before this latest reduction, Meta’s staff had already fallen from 87 thousand employees in September 2022 to around 78 thousand.
The transition to artificial intelligence
In addition to the 8 thousand layoffs, Mark Zuckerberg’s plan involves the redeployment of 7 thousand employees in new workflows related to artificial intelligence. Some of the staff will join a group aimed at developing Ai agents for the automation of activities currently carried out by human operators. According to the company’s internal documents, the goal is to streamline the organizational structure by eliminating some managerial levels. In recent months, around 2 thousand people have already been placed in a new division called Applied AI and Engineeringled by Vice President of Engineering Maher Saba, who will use data from the internal monitoring program to implement the new automation tools.