Meta Lays Off Over 100 Workers from AR/VR Division
Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has reportedly laid off over 100 employees from its Reality Labs division. Reality Labs is responsible for Meta’s virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) projects, including the popular Quest headsets.
The news first came from The Verge, which reported that the layoffs affected teams working in Oculus Studios — the part of Meta that creates games for Quest. Some hardware teams from Reality Labs were also impacted. Later, Bloomberg confirmed that more than 100 people lost their jobs.
Tracy Clayton, a spokesperson for Meta, confirmed to The Verge that there were cuts inside Oculus Studios. Clayton said: “Some teams are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size.”
Clayton added that the changes were made to: “help Studios work more efficiently on future mixed reality experiences for our growing audience, while still delivering great content for people today.”
The Verge noted that Meta chose not to comment about layoffs outside of Oculus Studios.
One group affected by the layoffs is the team behind Supernatural, a fitness app for Meta Quest. Meta bought the app’s developer, Within, for $400 million in 2023 after a long legal fight with the FTC.
The Supernatural team shared a statement on Facebook, saying they were: “deeply saddened” by the loss of “some of our incredibly talented team members.”
Despite the cuts, Meta says it is still serious about mixed reality and plans to keep investing in fitness and gaming. The company said: “Our drive to deliver the best experiences possible for the Quest and Supernatural communities remains unchanged.”
Meta has been cutting a lot of jobs over the past few years. In 2022 and 2023, they let go of over 20,000 employees. One major studio, Ready at Dawn — creators of Lone Echo — was shut down last year after being hit hard by those layoffs.
These new layoffs come after Meta admitted that Reality Labs was losing over $1 billion every month for almost two years. Meta said it expects even bigger losses as it keeps putting more money into its AR/VR efforts.
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