This spring, Facebook parent Meta laid off about 8,000 workers and transferred another 7,000 in a massive shakeup that was the latest in a string of high-profile layoffs ushered in by AI transformation. And already, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is acknowledging an unfortunate reality: “We’ve made mistakes,” he wrote in a recent memo to employees.
In the internal memo reported by Reuters, the tech titan pointed to the complexities facing companies that are quickly trying to restructure their human workforces to make way for advances brought by AI. The pace at which AI is evolving, Zuckerberg wrote, and the speed with which organizations need to reimagine their people strategies, mean that missteps will happen, and he cautioned the workforce that Meta will “almost certainly make more.”
The ability to fail and learn, he wrote, will be key as Meta leans into AI job creation that he forecasted will enable more internal mobility.
“By creating important new roles for people,” Zuckerberg said, “this also allowed us to shrink the size of teams knowing that if we make mistakes in some places, then we could transfer some people back.”
A practice that ‘falls short’
So-called “boomeranging”—or rehiring or transferring employees—is gaining steam in the wake of AI-driven restructuring.
In fact, Forrester’s recent research included a bold prediction: About half of jobs that were cut this year would be rehired, but often offshore or at lower salaries. Already, more than half of employers surveyed that have undergone layoffs say they regret laying off workers to make room for AI investments.
“Companies that moved too quickly on AI are now seeing where it falls short in practice,” Megan Slabinski, district president of technology talent solutions at Robert Half, recently told Fast Company. “While they may have seen early efficiency gains, those efforts also surfaced gaps in quality, oversight and decision-making, especially as business demands picked up.”
And gaps may be particularly apparent at organizations that are slashing the middle-manager level.
In its survey of hiring managers, Robert Half found that 40% rehired after a layoff because AI wasn’t able to effectively replicate the context or institutional knowledge the departing employee held—a red flag for organizations shrinking the manager segment of the workforce.
Estimates predict that middle managers made up about one-third of the recent cuts at Meta.
Zuckerberg’s memo also acknowledged the strain retained managers may be feeling with more individual reports. According to Reuters, his memo emphasized an increased investment in team-building, efforts to reduce the ratio of employees-to-supervisors and continued efforts to prioritize internal mobility.
AI layoffs in tech
While pledging not to “overpromise,” Zuckerberg did state in the memo that leadership doesn’t anticipate any further mass layoffs this year.
Even so, the tech industry has been the hardest-hit with job cuts in 2026. New research from TradingPlatforms found that nearly 128,000 tech workers have been laid off since January. More than half are linked to changing investment priorities as tech companies bet big on AI.
Meta is among those, with most of the efforts to transfer employees internally focused on AI initiatives, according an anonymous source quoted recently by NPR.
“To focus more on AI, they are moving 7,000 people to teams that focus on AI projects,” they said.
The U.S. leads AI-driven tech layoffs worldwide by far, with about 77% of such cuts happening at U.S.-based companies. While AI integration is the “defining narrative” behind those moves, in some cases, organizations are looking at layoffs as “pre-emptive cost-cutting measures” to fund AI infrastructure, rather than as a direct result of automation improvements, says Stanislava Savisheva, analyst at TradingPlatforms.
“This suggests,” TradingPlatforms analysts say, “that some AI-related job losses may eventually be offset by rehiring, often in lower-wage regions, once implementation catches up with expectations.”
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