Meta layoffs continued this week as the corporate reduce greater than 1,000 jobs in its Actuality Labs division. The tech big is eliminating roughly 10% of that unit because it shifts assets from metaverse initiatives to AI-powered wearables and cellphone options, based on Bloomberg.
The cuts comply with the corporate’s elimination of about 3,600 workers, roughly 5% of its world workforce, by means of performance-based terminations in 2025. Since 2022, Meta has shed tens of hundreds of roles.
The optimism vs. proof downside
Meta’s newest layoffs spotlight a rising problem for CHROs throughout industries: being requested to execute layoffs based mostly on investments and enterprise plans that haven’t but delivered returns.
At many corporations, it is a dialog overshadowed by synthetic intelligence. Based on Gartner analysis, just one% of layoffs within the first half of 2025 resulted from AI truly growing worker productiveness. As an alternative, corporations are reducing headcount in anticipation of future AI good points, putting HR leaders in an unimaginable place.
“We’re seeing organizations scale back their workforce based mostly on optimism about AI’s potential, not proof of its efficiency,” says Kaelyn Lowmaster, director within the Gartner HR apply. “In some circumstances, corporations will find yourself needing to rehire for roles they’ve reduce.”
Learn extra: ‘Quiet firing’ and layoffs might take a toll on U.S. staff in 2026
The expertise remix problem
Meta’s scenario illustrates the fact of workforce planning complexity. The corporate invested billions in its metaverse imaginative and prescient, constructed groups round that technique and is now dismantling these investments to guess on AI {hardware}.
For CHROs, this creates two challenges. First, leaders should execute layoffs in a means that doesn’t injury the group’s employment model, significantly when the strategic rationale might shift once more. Second, they should lead what Gartner calls “expertise remix” efforts. These make sure the workforce can truly help evolving enterprise targets quite than merely reducing headcount and hoping AI fills the gaps.
“Probably the most profitable CHROs in 2026 will give attention to sustainable workforce planning that accounts for AI’s precise affect, not its promised potential,” Lowmaster says.
