Meta Lays Off 8,000 Employees

<p>Meta&comma; the giant Internet company based in Mountain View&comma; has laid off 8&comma;000 employees or 10&percnt; of its workforce&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company is the parent of Facebook&comma; Instagram&comma; Whatsapp and Threads&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to Business Insider&comma; Meta employees losing their jobs are receiving 16 weeks of severance pay plus two additional weeks for each year worked with the company&period; In addition&comma; employees will get 18 months of paid Cobra health insurance coverage&period; Unvested stock units will be forfeited but earned units and leave will be paid out&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Layoffs come with Meta continuing to report record revenues&period; In the first quarter of 2026&comma; Meta reported revenues of &dollar;56&period;3 billion&comma; a 33&percnt; increase from the year before&period; Net income was &dollar;26&period;7 billion or 61&percnt; higher than last year&period; Over 3&period;56 billion people used one of Meta&&num;8217&semi;s products on a daily basis&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Expenses&comma; however&comma; are surging at the company due to AI and data center expansion&period; The company says it anticipates 2026 capital expenditures&comma; including principal payments on finance leases&comma; to be in the range of &dollar;125-145 billion&comma; an increase from the prior range of &dollar;115-135 billion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to company filings&comma; the median employee salary at Meta was &dollar;388&comma;200 in 2025&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;