https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/meta-planning-sweeping-layoffs-ai-costs-mount-2026-03-14/
16 replies (most recent on top)
The Wall Street Journal referred to the growing tech labor meltdown as cataclysmic, way worse than '08.
you META people are so disconnect. Awesome compensation, free food, job safety for years, and god forbid, you're getting laid off for the first time in your career ...... let's just say, you aien't seen nothing yet ..... if you think this 20% is the last one, well ..... you've got a lot to learn.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-meta-really-cut-20-of-its-staff-and-is-ai-to-blame-8ab7f380?mod=home_invest
@f2 take your meds... the world is not always going to be what YOU want.
Troll! Quit polluting this board with cr-p! This used to be a place to get real info --- before you were confined to your mom's basement. Get lost a-hole!
" compensation for tech workers in the US will drop until it is inline with their peers in other industries."
@bj Agreed but this feels like it may be worse given AI is accelerating the implosion in two ways at once. On the one hand a historic number of tech jobs is simply vanishing forever. On the other hand tech wages will continue to plummet with the growing flood of unemployed techies. The "implosion" will be due to an increasingly disproportionate number of workers relative to the number of actual jobs. Coupled with AI-fueled debt, corporations will be more than happy to exploit situation by continuing to lower wages with workers being the ultimate casualties.
Meta has almost completely burned all of it's cash on hand.
Cash Reserves also once was ORCL strong point but it's also all gone.
Is the meta guy moving to the sunshine state to say bye bye to CA Bay Area?
@b7 compensation for tech workers in the US will drop until it is inline with their peers in other industries. People currently in tech will change industries to secure employment. Most people currently in tech don't do enough work to justify their salaries. Look at people you work with, you can estimate their salary level are they worth it? Ask yourself would you pay you as much as you make for the work that you do? Tech has too many workers so this is about to be rectified. It was a good ride while it lasted.
@b6 if you are talking about general development using AI-based dev tools then I agree that those developers should have more longevity than developers with outdated skills. However, because those AI-based developers will be more productive, fewer dev jobs will exist. Meanwhile, only the most skilled and productive of these developers will remain employable and in the long term they will ultimately face the same squeeze from market and salary forces, not to mention ongoing pressure to continually do more with less.
Given the growing glut of unemployed tech workers and the collapsing tech employment market we have already seen posts on this board from folks who have accepted new jobs for well below their prior salaries.
What I want to know is how long until salaries for on-shore work are so low that only off-shore tech workers will actually work in tech? And how low will those salaries be? For instance, in a couple of years I can imagine a situation where the number of tech jobs is half of what it is today, while the number of unemployed tech workers is 4 or 5X of what it is now. Not hard to imagine employers paying half (or less) of current salaries at that point.
The other thing that's tough to stomach is you just know that Zuck and Larry figure they can layoff 20K and 40K respectively, and then turn around and offer a quarter of those jobs for half the pay. Just based on this they could slash expenses and force any and all workers to settle for low pay.
Bottom line, we are looking at an implosion in this market that is happening fast, right before our very eyes.
This applies to Oracle developers who have outdated skills but not to AI developers who have the latest skills
@ap
Great post, TY. That topic deserves its own discussion thread.
Most of us can agree that tech no longer offers a promising career path.
Worker Devaluation Phase 1: Commoditization of Tech Skills
Tech workers started becoming commoditized almost 30 years ago and that process led to the offshoring that has increased since. That started the decline of well paying, onshore tech jobs.
Worker Devaluation Phase 2: AI Driven Collapse of Tech Job Market
Now with AI the value of tech skills is plummeting before our very eyes. Eg, a programmer can no longer depend on getting a descent salary in a market flooded with workers and vaporizing job opportunities. The value of tech skills is heading into the tank. In short, tech workers no longer have value. My guess is that only the small fraction, maybe 10% or less of tech jobs will exist in the near future, and only for PHD/research-level skillsets. The tech employment bo-m dead.
Any parent encouraging their child to go into tech (unless perhaps math or hard sciences) is now setting their child up to fail.
Adult tech workers who are not close to retirement have no choice but to retrain, unless they are fortunate enough to be in that rarified band of PHD level skilled workers who are equipped to land one of the 10% (or less) of tech jobs that remain.
The overall picture is bleak, but there's never a better time than the present to course-correct. Good luck!
@ah the markets are ridiculously overbought and private equity is leveraged over their heads. Both Oracle and Meta have committed hundreds of billions to AI build outs that haven't returned anything on those investments. The war in the middle east is spiking oil prices and impacting global trade. The worst part is that this is just the start. It has only been a little over 2 weeks and Iran hasn't just rolled over as was probably projected by the "master minds" orchestrating this debacle. The markets have been fairly resilient so fair but that won't last. Get ready for a major correction followed by years of stagflation at best. More layoffs on the way.
My prediction: JP at the fed will take the brunt of the blame for not dropping interest rates on demand. Even though dropping rate would be a corollary event that really wouldn't have prevented anything.
It is interesting seeing the money tightening in just the past few weeks. Blue Owl, BlackRock, Blackstone, Morgan Stanley all limiting withdrawals. Then you have Oracle and Meta possibly have layoffs.