Meta cuts 8,000 jobs in sweeping global layoffs

Meta cancels hiring plans for 6,000 roles amid ongoing layoffs and a pivot to Artificial Intelligence development.Meta has launched a wave of layoffs that will affect 10 percent of the company’s global workforce, representing about 8,000 people.The cuts, which began on Wednesday, are planned to occur in three waves, beginning at 4am local time for those affected, the Reuters news agency reported.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4UN cuts global growth forecast, blaming Middle East crisislist 2 of 4New York City hotels avert labour strike threat before FIFA World Cuplist 3 of 4Will Trump kill $14bn Taiwan arms deal?list 4 of 4Why is Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace facing a funding shortfall?end of listWorkers affected so far include those on the company’s integrity team – the group in charge of removing malicious content and hate speech – as well as members of the company’s cybersecurity teams and content design division, according to reporting from Business Insider.Workers in the United States will receive 16 weeks of severance pay, in addition to an extra two weeks for every year they have been employed at the company, representatives for Meta confirmed to Al Jazeera.In addition to the cuts, the parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram said it would cancel plans to hire 6,000 people and shift 7,000 other employees into Artificial Intelligence (AI) workflow-related roles.This comes amid reports of declining morale at the Mark Zuckerberg-led company following the launch of an AI tracking programme for workers in an effort for Meta to train its own AI models, a point of contention for workers, the Wall Street Journal reported.According to the paper, more than 1,500 people signed a petition demanding that the company not collect their data.The move is part of a series of issues affecting morale, with one unnamed policy employee telling Wired that morale is low in part because its US workforce is “being used to train the AI models that will replace them”.