MANILA, Philippines – About 10% of Meta’s 78,000 employees are being laid off as the company seeks to pivot further into artificial intelligence initiatives.

The New York Times reported that 8,000 employees would be let go on Wednesday, May 20, while another 7,000 would be reassigned to AI initiatives. According to Business Insider, the layoff notices — sent via email — would be staggered and released at 4 am at particular locations, with Singapore the first to see the ax fall.

Employees in Britain, the US and elsewhere will also get these notifications early on Wednesday morning in their respective time zones.

The news follows an April announcement in which workers were informed of the layoffs.

Meta in January announced it was boosting capital spending plans for this year by 73% — up to $135 billion — to pursue “superintelligence,” an effort to offer deeply personalized artificial intelligence to its large social media user base.

In April, Meta also instituted the installation of tracking software into US-based employees’ computers to capture their mouse movements and keystrokes for AI training data. Workers protested the move earlier this month. – Rappler.com