Meta Job Cuts Hit Reality Labs, Sales, and Recruiting Teams
Meta lays off hundreds of employees across Reality Labs, sales, and recruiting as it shifts focus from the metaverse to artificial intelligence.
Peter Lawson|Senior Editor
Mar. 26, 2026
Meta is letting off hundreds of employees, according to reports from The New York Times, NBC News, and The Information. The employment losses affect Meta's recruiting, social media, and sales teams, as well as Reality Labs, which develops the company's smart glasses and virtual reality headsets. According to an NBC News source, Meta began cutting off hundreds of employees on Wednesday, affecting its Reality Labs virtual reality branch as well as at least four other divisions. Layoffs will also affect personnel in Meta's recruiting, sales, global operations, and Facebook social teams. The changes are taking place across multiple departments within the corporation, including Facebook, global operations, recruiting, sales, and its virtual reality division Reality Labs. The layoffs in these departments are unrelated, according to the source. Clayton declined to say how many roles are affected. Meta had about 79,000 employees as of December 2025. While the majority of the affected workers were told on Wednesday, more may be alerted in the following weeks, depending on factors such as location. These job cuts show what Meta Platforms is really up to. The business is backing off of expensive bets like the metaverse and focusing more on AI. For workers, that change means fewer traditional jobs and more focus on automation and small, highly skilled teams. This is a change that is happening all over the tech industry, not just at Meta. Teams across Meta regularly restructure or implement changes to ensure they're in the best position to achieve their goals, Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in an emailed statement. Where possible, we are finding other opportunities for employees whose positions may be impacted. The job losses are part of a bigger corporate restructure. Some employees are being offered new positions, while others may be given the chance to relocate. Earlier this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg projected more investment and a shift toward increasing dependence on artificial intelligence.
“ Meta lays off hundreds of employees across Reality Labs, sales, and recruiting as it shifts focus from the metaverse to artificial intelligence.”
We're starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person, he told me. Meta had almost 79,000 employees as of December, a 6% increase year on year. According to corporate documents, the company's senior executives will benefit from a new stock option incentive scheme designed as a retention aid, as it continues to invest substantially in artificial intelligence. Meta has distanced itself from its metaverse namesake in recent months, with the business planning to spend up to $135 billion as it expands its AI data centers and secures a deal to deploy Arm's first CPUs in them. The layoffs come as Meta refocuses its efforts and invests billions of dollars in artificial intelligence, where the social media giant is racing to catch up with competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Meanwhile, Meta has been expanding its skill base in generative AI and associated AI agents, which has become the company's new focus. The company's most recent endeavor involved a licensing agreement with the firm Dreamer, whose employees will join Meta Superintelligence Labs. As a result, Hugo Barra, Dreamer co-founder, will return to Meta. This is a big bet, a Meta official explained. These pay packages will not be realized unless Meta achieves massive future success. Meta has been cutting personnel in its VR segment since at least the beginning of the year. In January, the business lay off at least 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division, closed three VR studios, discontinued its work-focused metaverse platform, and suspended new content for its VR fitness program Supernatural. Meta announced in February that it would discontinue the VR version of its 3D social platform Horizon Worlds, but reversed that decision weeks later. In 2025, Meta reported an operational loss of $6.02 billion on $955 million in revenues from Reality Labs. Reality Labs' operating losses in 2026 are expected to be similar to those in 2025. Earlier reports stated that Meta could lay off more than 20% of its personnel, but the business dismissed this as speculation.
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