Meta is laying off employees at WhatsApp, Instagram, and more

Meta has begun laying off employees across various departments, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs, according to people familiar with the matter. Rather than a mass, companywide layoff, these smaller cuts seem to coincide with reorganizations of specific teams.

Some Meta employees have started posting that they’ve been laid off. Among them is Jane Manchun Wong, who gained notoriety for reporting on unannounced features coming to apps before joining the Threads team in 2023.

“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy,” company spokesperson Dave Arnold said in a statement shared with The Verge. “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.”

This new round of layoffs follows a small series of job cuts in the company’s Reality Labs division earlier this year. Meta first laid off 11,000 employees in 2022 following overoptimism about the company’s growth coming out of the covid pandemic. It then announced cuts of 10,000 more people as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” in 2023.

Update, October 16th: Added statement from Meta.