Several Meta teams were hit with layoffs on Wednesday, the company confirmed in a statement to TechCrunch, noting that the changes were made to reallocate resources within the company.
“Today, several Meta teams are making changes to ensure that resources are aligned with long-term goals and the local strategy,” a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “This includes moving other groups to different places, and moving other workers to different places. In cases like this where a role is terminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for the affected employees.”
Employees at Reality Labs, Instagram, and WhatsApp have been affected by the layoffs, according to The Verge.
Former Meta employees took to social media to announce that they were fired. Employees who have worked in Facebook, recruiting, legal operations, and design said they were laid off Wednesday in social media posts reviewed by TechCrunch.
A Meta spokesperson tells TechCrunch that Threads, hiring, and legal operations have not been affected by the restructuring and there are no layoffs.
One former Meta employee, who worked at one of these organizations, tells TechCrunch that some employees were offered different positions under the new contracts, or were told they could take a severance package. Several have taken a severance package, according to the source.
Meta declined to comment on the record about how many workers were affected and which agencies they were part of. A former employee tells TechCrunch that more than a dozen people on their team were notified that their roles were affected via video calls on Wednesday. Some of the workers affected on Wednesday received six weeks’ severance pay, according to a former Meta employee. (The employee spoke to TechCrunch on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter.)
In recent years, Meta has laid off a large number of its employees in order to balance the company accordingly following the aggressive hiring pandemic. In 2022, Meta laid off about 13% of its workforce, or 11,000 employees, for which CEO Mark Zuckerberg took personal responsibility. By 2023, Meta laid off another 10,000 workers and canceled 5,000 open roles it had not yet filled.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said a former Meta employee, who announced on social media that they were laid off, worked at Threads. That employee previously worked at Threads, and mentioned Threads in her post, but worked on a different team when she was laid off on Wednesday. Meta came to clarify.
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