Meta has started layoffs across WhatsApp, Instagram and more.
The tech giant is making smaller cuts across various departments — which also include Reality Labs — as the company undergoes reorganizations within certain teams.
“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy. This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles,” Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold said in a statement to The Verge.
He insisted the company would “work hard” to ensure anyone whose job is “eliminated” can be placed in a different role.
“In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees,” Arnold added.
Earlier this year, there had already been a small number of cuts in the Reality Labs division. In 2022, Meta let 11,000 go after an overly optimistic projection about its growth following the COVID-19 pandemic. And in 2023, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s so-called “year of efficiency” saw another 10,000 people laid off. Last year, he described the 2022 revenue growth collapse as a “humbling wakeup call.”
“Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation. Given this outlook, we’ll need to operate more efficiently than our previous headcount reduction to ensure success,” Zukerberg added.
