Meta Stock Price Falls as 8,000 Layoffs Near Next Week

Meta stock price is colliding with an 8,000-worker layoff plan next week, and employees expect to learn their status by email on May 20. The cut would amount to roughly 10% of Meta's global workforce, with about 500 cuts in the Bay Area. For workers, the process is designed to be fast and impersonal: a Wednesday email at 7 a.m. and an internal profile that could show the word deactivated.

May 20 Email At 7 A.M.

8,000 employees are expected to be laid off next week, and the company plans to tell workers by email on May 20. A longtime Meta employee said, "This is as anxious and stressed as I have ever been at a job." The same employee said workers on a work machine are probably being surveilled.

10% of Meta's global workforce is in scope, a scale that reaches well beyond one office or one team. About 500 cuts are expected in the Bay Area, where Meta's footprint remains especially visible. Employees say the practical check comes inside the company system: if the internal work profile says deactivated, the layoff has hit.

Meta Worker Anxiety Since January

More than 100,000 tech workers have been laid off since January, and Meta staff have been on edge since then about possible cuts. The company recently began key-stroke logging employee activity, adding another layer of pressure for workers who say they are being asked to train AI products while fearing they could be replaced by them. One employee said Meta is using workers to train AI to do everyone's job without paying them more for it.

A decade ago, working at Meta was considered a major status symbol in San Francisco. That standing now sits beside a different reality: employees are tracking a Wednesday 7 a.m. email and checking internal profiles for deactivated before they know whether they still have jobs. If the layoff plan lands as expected, the main operational change is immediate for the affected workers and broad enough to reset the mood inside one of the largest tech employers.

Bay Area Cuts Reach 500

500 expected cuts in the Bay Area make the layoff round especially concentrated in Meta's home market. For local workers, the notice path is simple and abrupt: email first, internal profile second. The combination leaves little room for ambiguity once the notice arrives.

Wednesday's 7 a.m. email is the line employees are watching most closely, because that is when the company is expected to tell them their fate. The status check that follows will decide who keeps access and who sees deactivated, turning a single morning message into the first hard answer for thousands of workers.