John Whelan: Ireland took a harder hit than the rest of the world in Meta's layoffs

Despite surging revenue fueled by $125bn AI investments, Meta slashes global staff and 20% of its Irish workforce while shifting to subscription services.

The massive expenditure on AI has forced Meta into a major workforce shake-up, initiating a 10% global staff cut.

Mon, 01 Jun, 2026 - 08:35

John Whelan

Mark Zuckerberg spent most of the time at Meta’s 2026 Annual General meeting last week explaining his AI strategy, which will soak up an estimated $125bn (€106.5bn) in the current year, a doubling on last year’s capital expenditure. He divided the company’s opportunities into four directions: using AI to improve core applications and advertising, creating personal AI agents, creating business agents, and developing AI hardware. He said this was "the most exciting moment in 20 years."

From 2010 to 2025, Meta sustained an average revenue growth rate of over 20%, accelerating rapidly during the post-pandemic digital ad booms and continuing through the recent AI investments, reaching $200bn (€172bn) in 2025. The revenue growth accelerated for the quarter ending March 31, 2026, with sales up 33% to $56bn (€48.5bn) year-over-year.