Report: New Meta Layoffs Could Rival Last Year's Job Cuts

Meta is reportedly planning multiple rounds of job cuts that could match last year’s layoffs.

The cuts could come over the next few months and would be at the same level as the 13% reduction of the social media giant’s workforce announced last year, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (March 10), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The first round of cuts is expected to come this week and will impact Meta’s non-engineering workers particularly hard, sources told the WSJ, which notes that the company could also shutter some teams and projects in connection with the layoffs.

PYMNTS has reached out to Meta for comment but has not yet received a reply.

Among the projects set to be shut down are wearable device initiatives underway at Meta’s Reality Labs division, which — as the WSJ notes — indicates Meta is backing away from its work to expand its virtual reality offerings, while continuing long-term research into that area.

The news follows reports from last week that Meta was considering another round of layoffs, which are happening during what CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called “the year of efficiency.”

And as PYMNTS reported at the beginning of February, “efficiency” has been Meta’s watchword recently, with the term appearing dozens of times on the company’s last earnings call.

“We’ve entered a phase change for the company … we will be more proactive about cutting projects and increasing efficiency around executing our top priorities,” Zuckerberg told investors.

PYMNTS noted that this new focus “could help lessen concerns that the company is overspending on its virtual reality ambitions.”

Investor concerns that Zuckerberg and his company spending too much time focused on the metaverse at expense of Meta’s core business helped lead to a 64% drop in the company’s shares last year, the worst performance in its history. Meta saw about $700 billion of its market value dry up between October 2021 and October 2022.

However, recent reports have suggested Meta’s inner workings are anything but efficient. A story in the Financial Times in February — which used information from interviews with employees — said the company had delayed budgets of several of its teams.

Staffers, meanwhile, complained about the lack of work getting done, with management unable to plan and a deficit of clarity around budgets or headcounts.

“Honestly, it’s still a mess,” said one employee. “The year of efficiency is kicking off with a bunch of people getting paid to do nothing.”