Hundreds set to be laid from Meta’s Reality Labs division

• A majority of the workers laid off in the recent worker adjustment and retraining notification (WARN) filing stem from the company’s “Reality Labs” division.
• California’s WARN notice revealed that the company intended to permanently lay off 272 employees by March 20, 2025.
• Meta filed a WARN notice in Washington, revealing that it would lay off 331 employees across the state.

As Meta continues to shift its business model away from developing the metaverse and toward building an artificial intelligence platform, the company confirmed plans to lay off hundreds of employees in California.

A majority of the workers laid off in the recent worker adjustment and retraining notification (WARN) filing stem from the company’s “Reality Labs” division. This information backs up a report from the New York Times, which stated that the company was planning to lay off about 1,500 workers, or about 10 percent of its Reality Labs division.

California’s WARN notice revealed that the company intended to permanently lay off 272 employees by March 20, 2026. The company will specifically cut ties with 53 employees at its Playa Vista location in Los Angeles County and 219 employees at its Burlingame location in San Mateo County.

Beyond California, Meta filed a WARN notice in Washington, revealing that it would lay off 331 employees across the state. According to the notice, employees are expected to receive their benefits and pay up until the day they separate from the company.

The notice did not include information about any potential severance packages being offered by the company. The affected positions ranged from game developers, data engineers, software engineers, AI researchers and more across several of the company’s departments, for the Metaverse Content Group, Horizon OS, and Reality Lab Group, to name a few.

USA Today reached out to Meta for comment regarding the layoffs, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Why is Meta shifting focus from the metaverse?

In 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would be changing its name from Facebook to Meta, to reflect its growing focus on the metaverse. As part of the company’s transition, it invested heavily in Reality Labs, formerly known as Oculus VR, to support the research and development of virtual and augmented reality hardware and software.

Meta initially invested $10 billion into the company to fund its research into new technologies. However, the company’s 2024 fourth-quarter earnings revealed that Meta had lost more than $60 billion in operating costs.

“Our outlook reflects an expectation for continued strong ad revenue growth, partially offset by lower year-over-year Reality Labs revenue in the fourth quarter,” reads the company’s 2025 third-quarter report.

Meta will announce its 2025 fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 28, 2026, and continue its focus on developing the company’s AI capabilities.

“We are at an exciting point for our company, where we have continued runway to improve our core services today as well as the opportunity to build new AI-powered experiences and services that will transform how people engage with our products in the future,” Meta said in its 2025 third-quarter report. “Next year will enable us to continue to deliver strong revenue growth in 2026, while our progress on AI models and products will position us to capitalize on new revenue opportunities in the years to come.”

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer, Andrew Bosworth, revealed a significant achievement for the company’s AI platform, according to Reuters.

The company’s new AI lab, Meta Platforms, had rapidly developed a “high-profile model” months after the company launched the lab. Although Bosworth did not provide an example of this new AI platform at the Davos event, he noted that it showed “a lot of promise,” according to Reuters.

Noe Padilla is a Northern California Reporter for USA Today. Contact him at npadilla@usatodayco.com, follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social. Sign up for the TODAY Californian newsletter or follow us on Facebook at TODAY Californian.