Synopsis
Meta Platforms reported a headcount of 77,986 as of March 31, 2026, a 1% year-on-year increase, despite ongoing workforce recalibration and cost-cutting measures. CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the company's focus on strengthening infrastructure and rewarding high-impact contributors to foster innovation and scale advanced models.Listen to this article in summarized format
This follows a period of workforce recalibration across the technology sector, during which Meta had undertaken cost-cutting measures and organisational restructuring.
“Over the past 10 months, we have built the strongest research team in the industry, and established the scientific and technical foundations to scale very advanced models,” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said in an earnings call.
He said the company is focussed on strengthening its infrastructure to build and deliver products at scale, keeping teams lean, rewarding high-impact contributors, and positioning itself to pursue a broader range of ideas and new initiatives.
Meta began the year with nearly 79,000 employees.
“We ended Q1 with over 77,900 employees, down 1% from Q4 as the impact of headcount optimisation efforts in certain functions was partially offset by hiring in priority areas of monetisation and infrastructure,” Susan Li, chief financial officer at the company, said during the call.
The tech giant recently announced that its first wave of layoffs planned for this year would take place on May 20, according to Reuters .
The Facebook and Instagram owner will lay off about 10% of its global workforce, or close to 8,000 employees, in that initial round, one of the sources said. At the same time, the company is also slowing hiring by not filling around 6,000 open positions it had previously planned to staff.
“We're seeing more and more examples where one or two people are building something in a week that would have previously taken dozens of people months. I want to make sure that Meta is the best place in the world for these types of people to come and make an impact. We're building the next evolution of our company around these people,” Zuckerberg said.
The company’s overall revenues in the third quarter of the current fiscal stood at $56.31 billion, a 33% on-year increase. Its capital expenditure was $19.84 billion. The company’s total costs and expenses were $33.44 billion, a 35% increase over the prior year.
The company expects 2026 second quarter revenues to be in the range of $58-61 billion, per its media release.
