Meta has reportedly initiated another round of job cuts, with a few hundred employees being laid off across multiple divisions. The reductions are spread across its Reality Labs unit, core social media teams, recruiting operations, and some sales roles, reports The Information. Employees in certain teams were reportedly asked to work remotely on the day the layoffs were expected, a measure often used by large tech firms to manage internal communication and minimize operational disruptions during job cuts.
A significant portion of the impact affects Reality Labs, the company’s division focused on virtual and augmented reality. The unit has been under sustained financial pressure, with total operating losses estimated at around $80 billion since 2020, including a $19.2 billion loss in 2025 alone. In recent months, the Mark Zuckerberg-led firm had already reduced headcount in this division by around 10-15%. The job cuts are also affecting recruiting teams. After rapidly expanding its workforce between 2020 and 2022, the company now needs fewer hiring resources, leading to downsizing. Similar adjustments in sales and social media teams point to continued cost-cutting in its core advertising business.
These moves are driven by a broader shift toward AI. The social media behemoth is investing heavily in AI infrastructure, including data centers, advanced chips, and machine learning systems, with projected expenses of $160 billion to $170 billion in 2026. This sharp rise in costs has pushed the company to reassess its operational efficiency, including workforce size, while increasingly relying on AI tools to handle tasks once done by employees.
The timing is notable as recent reports suggest that up to 16,000 jobs could be cut globally, potentially marking the largest workforce reduction in the history of Meta. This would account for around 20% of its workforce, which stood at about 79,000 employees at the end of 2025. Even earlier than this, in 2022, the social media giant laid off more than 11,000 employees, about 13% of its workforce. The following year, in 2023, it announced plans to cut another 10,000 jobs and eliminate 5,000 unfilled roles as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘year of efficiency’.
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