Meta had 77,986 full-time employees as of March 31, 2026, according to its Q1 2026 earnings report. Three weeks later, the company laid off 8,000 of them — roughly 10% of its workforce — in the largest single-round cut since the 2022–2023 “Year of Efficiency.” This post breaks down Meta’s current workforce size, layoff timeline, compensation figures, and the diversity data that is still available after the company stopped publishing annual DEI reports in 2025.
Meta Employee Statistics 2026 — TL;DR
Meta reported 78,865 full-time employees at year-end 2025, up 6.48% from 74,067 in 2024.
The company’s Q1 2026 headcount was 77,986 as of March 31, 2026, down 1% from Q4 2025.
In May 2026, Meta laid off approximately 8,000 workers — about 10% of its global workforce — and cancelled plans to fill 6,000 open positions.
An additional 7,000 employees were reassigned to AI-focused teams as part of the same restructuring.
Meta generated $2.55 million in revenue per employee in fiscal year 2025, up 14.7% from $2.22 million in 2024. The trailing twelve-month figure through Q1 2026 reached $2.81 million per employee.
How Many People Work at Meta in 2026?
Meta’s Q1 2026 SEC filing reported a headcount of 77,986 as of March 31, 2026. That represented a 1% increase from a year earlier, but a 1% decline from the 78,865 figure recorded at the close of 2025. The Q1 drop came from targeted cuts in Reality Labs and several other divisions in January and March 2026, before the much larger May round. After the May layoffs, Meta’s estimated headcount sits near 70,000, though the company has not filed an updated figure.
Meta Employee Count (2016–2025)
| Year | Employees | Year-Over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 17,048 | — |
| 2017 | 25,105 | +47.3% |
| 2018 | 35,587 | +41.8% |
| 2019 | 44,942 | +26.3% |
| 2020 | 58,604 | +30.4% |
| 2021 | 71,970 | +22.8% |
| 2022 | 86,482 | +20.2% |
| 2023 | 67,317 | -22.2% |
| 2024 | 74,067 | +10.0% |
| 2025 | 78,865 | +6.5% |
Source: Meta SEC filings, Macrotrends
Between 2016 and 2022, Meta’s workforce grew from 17,048 to 86,482 — a five-fold increase driven by pandemic-era hiring across product, engineering, and remote work roles. The 2023 contraction wiped out 19,165 positions in two waves. Growth resumed in 2024 and 2025, though at a much slower pace than the pre-2022 years.
Meta Layoffs: Complete Timeline (2022–2026)
Meta has cut more than 29,000 positions across five major rounds since November 2022. The company framed every round as a way to reduce costs and redirect spending toward artificial intelligence infrastructure. Here is a full breakdown of each wave.
| Date | Layoffs | Details |
|---|---|---|
| November 2022 | ~11,000 | 13% of workforce; first cuts under “Year of Efficiency” |
| March 2023 | ~10,000 | Second wave; flattened management layers |
| January 2026 | ~1,000+ | Reality Labs (10–15% of division), VR studios closed |
| March 2026 | ~700 | Cuts across Reality Labs, Facebook, recruiting, sales |
| May 2026 | ~8,000 | 10% of global workforce; largest single round since 2022 |
Source: CNBC, NPR, Variety, Reuters
The May 2026 layoffs hit the integrity team (content moderation), cybersecurity, and content design, according to Business Insider. U.S. workers received 16 weeks of severance plus two additional weeks for each year of tenure. Outside the U.S., packages varied by country. Separately, Meta cancelled 6,000 planned hires and moved roughly 7,000 existing employees into new AI-focused teams, including Applied AI Engineering and Agent Transformation Accelerator. Google, Cisco, and other tech firms carried out their own rounds during the same period — part of a broader restructuring wave across the industry in 2026.
CNBC reported that Meta’s overall employee rating on Blind dropped 25% from its Q2 2024 peak, with its culture score falling 39% over the same period. Another round of layoffs is expected in August 2026, with a further round possible in the fall.
Meta Employee Compensation and Salary Data
Meta remains one of the highest-paying employers in the technology sector. Compensation varies widely by role and level, but the numbers across multiple sources confirm that total pay sits well above industry averages, particularly for engineering and AI roles.
The median total compensation at Meta in 2026 was $273,276, according to Levels.fyi data updated in May 2026. Total compensation for software engineers ranged from $185,000 at the E3 (entry) level to $1,470,000 at E7 (principal), with a median of $444,000 across all levels. Blind’s verified salary data showed that the 25th percentile for total compensation was $205,442, while the 90th percentile was $540,005.
Meta Compensation by Role
| Role | Base Salary (Up To) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer (all levels) | $450,000 | H-1B filings (2025) |
| Research Engineer | $400,000 | H-1B filings (2025) |
| Product Manager | $348,000 | H-1B filings (2025) |
| VP of AI | $650,000 | H-1B filings (2025) |
| Director of Engineering | $810,579 | Glassdoor (2026) |
Source: Entrepreneur, Glassdoor, Levels.fyi
By department, average salaries at Meta in 2025 were highest in communications ($221K), followed by product ($212K), legal ($204K), and engineering ($169K), according to Comparably data. The company’s H-1B visa filings from 2025 showed most foreign workers earned between $150,000 and $250,000 in base salary. VP-level AI roles commanded the highest single base figure at $650,000, per Entrepreneur’s review of federal filings.
For comparison, NVIDIA’s median total compensation was $301,233 in fiscal 2025, while Apple’s average engineering salary ran lower due to its larger non-engineering headcount.
Meta Revenue Per Employee
Meta generated $200.97 billion in total revenue during fiscal year 2025 — a 22% year-over-year increase. With 78,865 employees at year-end, that worked out to $2.55 million in revenue per worker, up from $2.22 million in 2024. The trailing twelve-month figure through Q1 2026 reached $2.81 million per employee, as Q1 revenue hit $56.31 billion (up 33% year-over-year) while headcount held relatively flat at 77,986.
Net income per employee told a slightly different story. In 2025, Meta earned $766,600 per worker in profit — down 8.95% from $841,940 in 2024, despite higher revenue. The drop reflects increased spending on AI infrastructure and the $72.2 billion in capital expenditures during the year. For 2026, Meta projected capex of $125–$145 billion. Amazon’s revenue per employee is far lower at roughly $120,000, largely because of its 1.57 million-person logistics workforce.
Meta Employee Demographics and Diversity Data
Meta stopped publishing its annual diversity report in 2025 after a decade of public disclosure. The company dismantled its DEI team in January 2025, reassigned its Chief Diversity Officer to an accessibility-focused role, ended its Diverse Slate hiring approach, and cancelled representation goals for women and ethnic minorities.
The most recent publicly available demographic data comes from Meta’s 2022 report and third-party estimates from 2023–2024. Based on those sources, here is what is known about Meta’s workforce composition.
Meta Workforce by Gender
| Gender | Share of Workforce |
|---|---|
| Men | ~63.9% |
| Women | ~36.1% |
Source: Meta 2022 Diversity Report, SQ Magazine (2025 estimates)
Meta U.S. Workforce by Ethnicity
| Ethnicity | Share of U.S. Workforce |
|---|---|
| White | 38.5% |
| Asian | 45.9% |
| Hispanic / Latino | 6.7% |
| Black / African American | 4.6% |
| Other | 4.4% |
Source: Meta 2022 Diversity Report, SQ Magazine
In 2022, Meta reported that women held 36.7% of leadership positions globally and that underrepresented groups made up 46.7% of its global workforce. People with disabilities represented 6.2% of the U.S. workforce, LGBTQ+ employees 10.0%, and veterans 2.3%. With DEI reporting discontinued, it is not clear whether these numbers have changed. The broader tech industry remains roughly 70% male and 40% white in the U.S., per data from companies still publishing their reports.
Meta Workforce by Department
Engineering is Meta’s largest department, accounting for an estimated 30–35% of total headcount. Program and project management makes up 8–10%, marketing 5–7%, product management and analytics each 3–5%, and research 2–4%. The remaining 40–45% includes legal, finance, HR, operations, sales, and content moderation teams.
The May 2026 restructuring reshaped some of these proportions. Meta consolidated engineering and product teams and created four new AI-oriented organizations. The company did not release updated departmental breakdowns after the cuts. Other tech companies like X have undergone similar department-level restructuring since 2022, though at smaller absolute scale.
How Does Meta’s Headcount Compare to Other Tech Companies?
Meta’s workforce of ~78,000 (pre-May layoffs) is the smallest among the five largest U.S. tech firms by revenue. Amazon leads with 1,576,000 employees, followed by Microsoft (228,000), Alphabet (190,820), and Apple (166,000).
| Company | Employees (2025) | Revenue Per Employee |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 1,576,000 | ~$120K |
| Microsoft | 228,000 | ~$1.15M |
| Alphabet (Google) | 190,820 | ~$1.83M |
| Apple | 166,000 | ~$2.51M |
| Meta | 78,865 | ~$2.55M |
| NVIDIA | 42,000 | ~$5.14M |
Source: Company SEC filings (2025)
NVIDIA leads the group in revenue per employee by a wide margin at $5.14 million, followed by Meta and Apple at roughly $2.5 million each. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance employs over 150,000 people globally, though it does not report public financials for comparison. The return-to-office debate continues to shape hiring across all these companies, with Meta requiring employees to be in-office three days per week under a hybrid work arrangement.
FAQs
How many employees does Meta have in 2026?
Meta reported 77,986 employees as of March 31, 2026. After the May 2026 layoffs of 8,000 workers, the estimated headcount is approximately 70,000.
How many employees did Meta lay off in 2026?
Meta cut roughly 9,700 positions in 2026 across three rounds: about 1,000 in January, 700 in March, and 8,000 in May. Another 6,000 open roles were cancelled.
What is the average salary at Meta?
The median total compensation at Meta is $273,276 per year, according to Levels.fyi (May 2026). Software engineers earn a median of $444,000 across all levels.
What is Meta’s revenue per employee?
Meta generated $2.55 million in revenue per employee in fiscal 2025. The trailing twelve-month figure through Q1 2026 reached $2.81 million per worker.
Does Meta still publish diversity reports?
No. Meta stopped publishing annual diversity reports in 2025 and dismantled its DEI team in January of that year. The last full report covered data through mid-2022.
Sources:
https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/meta/employees/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/meta-layoffs-zuckerberg-says-success-isnt-a-given-in-memo.html
