Meta is reportedly planning to cut 22,000 jobs in 2026, with the first 8,000 layoffs expected on May 20. Employees describe rising anxiety, with some tracking layoffs in real time. Reports say internal AI usage metrics have added pressure, even as the company denies they influence decisions. The cuts mark Meta’s largest restructuring yet.

The night before Meta's first major round of layoffs, employees were stuffing their bags with free snacks, drinks, and chargers. That detail shared on X by former Meta employee Adel Wu has resurfaced this week as the company prepares for what many inside are calling its biggest cut yet. Metal plans to reportedly eliminate 22,000 roles ein 2026, with the first wave of 8,000 hitting on May 20.

Wu, who lived through four to five layoff rounds during her final year at Meta, says this one feels different in magnitude if not atmosphere. "My friends still there are either just waiting hoping to get laid off, or extremely anxious because the job is their lifeline," she wrote. A current Meta employee echoed that sentiment, telling X that while the anxiety is real, the mood is not worse than the first two years, just grimmer in a more settled way. "I miss 2021 so much," they added.

How Meta plans to decide who to layoff

What makes this round especially unsettling, according to accounts published by the SF Standard and aggregated by layoff tracker LayoffAI, is what is happening to the people who have not yet been let go. Internal leaderboards now rank employees by how many AI tokens they consume and how many minutes they spend in Meta's chatbot. Workers are openly admitting to asking the bot meaningless questions simply to avoid sitting at the bottom of the rankings, because being low on the leaderboard is understood to be a risk signal.