iWorld
Facebook to train 5 mn Indians by 2021 in digital skills
MUMBAI: Facebook in India is planning to train five million people with digital skills in three years, to help small businesses reach the global economy, according to ET telecom.
The social media giant has already trained one million people across 150 cities and 48,000 villages with support from 50 partners. These numbers were disclosed at the inaugural day of the two-day Facebook community boost programme aimed at helping small businesses gain digital marketing skills.
Facebook public policy director India, South and Central Asia Ankhi Das said, "We have a very strong framework of partnership with local partners and state governments. We are very excited that our programmes such as BoostYourBusiness, SheMeansBusiness, that are run in partnership with State and Central Government, civil society and private institutions, focus on facilitating economic transformation and mainstreaming of small businesses at the grassroots level into the formal economy. The company also works closely with the Ministry of Skill Development And Entrepreneurship on digital training."
The Facebook training programmes entail simple lessons that help to build a digital presence, avoiding expensive fees for creating and hosting websites, tap into the growing mobile economy, gain market access by learning to market their products to more than two billion people globally who use Facebook, increase awareness about their products and services.
According to Das, the training programmes for India will also help people learn how to utilise Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram.
The training modules for these businesses in digital marketing and online safety developed by Facebook are available in 14 local languages.
Facebook said its programmes reached 29 states in India, including Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Odisha and Rajasthan among others.
"More than 80 per cent of SMBs (small and midsize businesses) on Facebook say they have increased sales because of the platform and access to global and local market," Das said, citing the findings of a recent survey.
The results showed that over 70 per cent of SMBs on the social networking platform built their business on Facebook.
On concerns of businesses generating fake like or page views, Das said that Facebook is aggressively fighting spread of misinformation on the platform by taking down fake accounts.
In the last two quarters, Facebook has removed more than 1.5 billion fake accounts, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a note last week.
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
