Meta begins cutting thousands of jobs in sweeping layoffs. Here's how much it's paying in severance. - Business Insider

The chapter that Meta employees have dreaded for a month is here.On Wednesday, emails went out to roughly 10% of Meta's 78,000 employees, notifying them that they were being laid off. The notifications were sent in three waves at 4 a.m. local time on May 20 across different regions, according to a memo that Meta HR chief Janelle Gale sent to an employee resource group on Monday.The layoffs are expected to eliminate around 8,000 roles. Employees working in Meta's Integrity, cybersecurity, and content design teams are among those impacted so far, according to two sources and public posts.Meta, in an email to laid-off staff, said the reduction in head count was part of a "continued effort to run the company more efficiently" and to help it offset its other investments.US employees will receive a severance package including 16 weeks — or four months — in base pay, plus two weeks for every year of continuous employment, according to an internal document seen by Business Insider.They'll also get 18 months of healthcare coverage for themselves and their families — triple the previous amount — as Business Insider previously reported.Impacted employees outside the US will receive similar packages that vary by country.Fintech company Block recently gave recently laid-off employees 20 weeks of salary plus one additional week per year of tenure and six months of healthcare. Amazon gave staff three months of full pay and healthcare benefits, plus an additional severance package.In the Monday memo, HR chief Gale added that managerial positions would be cut across the company to create flatter organizational structures."We're now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership," she wrote.Employees in the US were instructed to work from home on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by Business Insider.Meta didn't respond to a request for comment.Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at crollet@businessinsider.com or on Signal and WhatsApp at 628-282-2811. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.Meta also plans to move more than 7,000 people to work on new initiatives around AI. Gale told staff that leaders across the company will announce organizational changes alongside the layoffs. Meta is spending billions in the AI race and in April forecast its 2026 capital expenditures to range from $125 billion to $145 billion.At an internal meeting last month, Gale said morale had taken a hit due to the looming layoffs, and that the tech giant was doing its best to make a "shitty" situation "the best version possible," adding that COBRA coverage had been tripled.Since Meta first announced the coming layoffs on April 23, employees have been working in a state of limbo, unsure of their fate at the company.Business Insider found seven Meta staffers posting on the tech worker platform Blind who said they wished they would be laid off. "I'm praying for the axe," one post read."A lot of people are stressed or want to be laid off," read another, who added that employee morale had never felt this low. "I am [hoping to get laid off] too," another poster wrote.The staffers also cited Meta's generous severance. Because of the package, one worker wrote on Blind that they'd actually wished that the cuts had happened sooner."if I am laid off, awesome," they wrote.Meta leaders told staff they are not ruling out further job cuts beyond this Wednesday's 10% round, Business Insider previously reported.