Meta Lays Off Employees At WhatsApp, Instagram And Reality Labs

Meta announced layoffs Wednesday across WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs as part of reorganizing specific teams rather than a mass, company-wide reduction.

Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold said some teams were making changes to align with the company's long-term strategic goals and location strategy, The Verge reported.

"Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy," Arnold said, adding, "This includes moving some teams to different locations and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees."

Some of the Meta staff took to social media about being laid off. Jane Manchun Wong, a software engineer known for reporting unannounced features in Meta apps before joining the Threads team in 2023, shared the news on Threads.

"I'm still trying to process this but I'm informed that my role at Meta has been impacted. Thank you to everyone, especially my Threads and Instagram teammates, for my wild journey at Meta. If anyone is interested in working together esp on software/security engineering, please reach out via my email, LinkedIn, etc noted on my personal website," Wong wrote.

While employees working on Reality Labs, Instagram, and WhatsApp were hit, staff working in Threads, recruiting, and legal operations were not affected by the move, as there were no layoffs there, TechCrunch reported.

Few details were available regarding the exact number of employees impacted.

A former Meta employee who worked in one of these organizations said more than a dozen people on their team were informed that their roles were impacted during video calls on Wednesday. According to the former Meta employee, some affected employees were offered six weeks of severance pay.

In June, Meta reduced a small number of jobs as part of a restructuring of its Reality Labs into two separate organizations: Wearables and Metaverse.

Besides this development, another report stated that Meta fired two dozen employees in Los Angeles for using their daily $25 meal credits to purchase household items like acne pads, wine glasses, and laundry detergent. These terminations, which occurred last week, were unrelated to the team restructurings.

Meta laid off 11,000 employees, about 13% of its workforce, in 2022 due to over-optimism about its growth post-COVID, followed by another round of 10,000 job cuts and withdrew nearly 5,000 open roles that were not filled in 2023. The retrenchment move was aimed at reducing costs in line with CEO Mark Zuckerberg's focus on a "year of efficiency."

The company reported a surge of over 60% in its share value this year.

In its latest second-quarter results, Meta exceeded market expectations for revenue and provided a robust sales forecast for the third quarter. The results showed that strong digital ad spending on its social media platforms is helping to offset the costs of its artificial intelligence investments.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg was named the second-richest person in the world, trailing only entrepreneur Elon Musk, as his net worth reached $206.2 billion.