Meta's recent workforce reduction has disproportionately impacted certain teams within the company, according to internal documents obtained by Business Insider. The tech giant's latest round of layoffs affected approximately 5% of its total workforce, equivalent to about 3,600 employees.
The documents, which include 30 separation agreement records, reveal that teams under Facebook head Tom Alison experienced the highest number of cuts, with 335 positions eliminated. The Horizon virtual reality platform team, led by VP Vishal Shah under the Reality Labs division, saw the second-highest impact with 244 job cuts.
Other heavily affected departments include:
- Reality Labs devices team under VP Carmine Arabia: 195 positions eliminated across business analytics, engineering, and technical roles
- Former head of people Lori Goler's group: 189 administrative positions cut
- Data center strategy teams reporting to VP Rachel Peterson: 186 roles removed
- Monetization engineering under VP Peng Fan: 180 positions eliminated, mainly software engineers
- Augmented reality group led by VP Alex Himel: 141 employees cut, primarily in wearables
The documents were provided to affected employees as part of federal law requirements to help them make informed decisions about their separation agreements. The records detail approximately 3,115 affected positions across various business groups, teams, and job titles.
Two of the seven most impacted groups belong to Meta's Reality Labs unit, which was recently reorganized as a core business component. In a November memo, Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth emphasized 2025 as a decisive year for the company's metaverse initiatives, describing it as a moment that would determine whether their vision becomes reality or remains an unrealized ambition.
Meta has indicated plans to backfill some positions, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg noting that the cuts targeted "low performers." The monetization engineering team, despite the cuts, plans to accelerate hiring for machine learning engineers in the coming months.