iWorld
Seija-Liisa Eskola joins Fremantle Finland as head of scripted
Mumbai: Entertainment format creator and distributor Fremantle Finland has announced the appointment of Seija-Liisa Eskola as the head of scripted. She will be responsible for the development and sale of drama series.
She has both been involved in the concept development and worked as an executive producer in Soundtrack of Love (Yle/Finnish Broadcasting Company), Welcome to Texas (MTV), Happy Hour of the Wolf (Yle) and Man in Room 301(Elisa Viihde), which was the first Finnish series acquired by the BBC.
She joined Fremantle from Warner Bros. ITVP, where she was head of scripted.
Commenting on her appointment, Eskola said, “I am very excited about my new role. It is like coming home, as I used to work with the company and the daily drama series Secret Lives as a director many years ago. Fremantle has a large drama selection and is also the number one in Finnish daily drama, so this is the perfect environment to develop new Finnish scripted series. I want to use my long experience in drama development and have intensive cooperation with directors and editors.”
Fremantle Finland CEO Jarkko Luoma said, “In recent years, Fremantle has grown significantly internationally in drama production. This trend can also be seen in Finland, and we want it to continue on this path. We wanted a top drama professional and Eskola is exactly the right person for the job! She is a great addition to the Fremantle family.”
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.
