Meta Layoffs by Year: 2026 Is Already the Biggest WARN Year, and Headcount Is Down to 66,775

Meta layoffs by year, as of November 5, 2026: Meta stated more than 11,000 cuts in 2022, around 10,000 in 2023 and about 8,000 in May 2026. State WARN notices name 4,545, 3,745, 409 in 2025 and 5,810 so far in 2026, a floor. Headcount fell to 66,775 on September 30, down 15% in a year.

Meta layoffs by year: the table

WARN by employer notice date, Meta Platforms and Facebook as filer. Other is Texas (222 in 2022) and New Jersey (114 in 2023, 74 in 2026). *Headcount for 2026 is September 30. It compares with December 31, 2025. Year-end headcount is from each Form 10-K. “None” under charges means no such figure in that year’s filings.

The surprise is 2026. Meta’s stated cut this year is the smallest of its three big rounds, yet WARN notices already name 5,810 workers, more than 2022’s 4,545 or 2023’s 3,745. May alone produced 4,739. Before 2022 the files hold no notice filed by Meta or Facebook at all, including 2020 and 2021. Contractors at Meta sites filed separately and are excluded here: 671 workers across ABM, Astreya, Flagship, Anning-Johnson and Restec.

Quarterly headcount, with every round marked

From the “Headcount was” line in each Form 10-Q and 10-K. Red marks the quarter-end nearest each round, not the announcement date. Reported headcount lags cuts: Meta said its June 30, 2026 figure still included about 8,000 affected employees.

Meta peaked at 87,314 on September 30, 2022 and hit 66,185 a year later, a fall of 21,129 that nearly equals the 21,000 it announced. Then headcount climbed back to 78,865 by December 31, 2025. Nine months later, 66,775 puts headcount 590 above the 2023 low, undoing all but that much of the net hiring since. The drop from June 30 to September 30, 2026 alone was 8,697, as the June 10-Q said it would be. Since Meta said only “the majority” of those 8,000 would be gone by the end of September, the December figure could fall further. That is the filing’s wording, not a forecast of ours.

What changed most recently

No new notice since May. The last Meta notices are dated May 22, 2026, in both Washington and California, and California logged the last of them as received on May 26. Washington’s database checked through November 4, 2026 and California’s file through November 2 hold nothing newer.

The third-quarter 10-Q, filed October 22, 2026, reports 66,775 employees and repeats “$1.18 billion of severance expenses related to the May 2026 headcount reduction of approximately 8,000 employees which impacted both FoA and RL segments.” It announces no new round, and Meta’s October 21 earnings release states no new severance item. On what comes next, the press disagrees. CNBC reported on May 18, citing people with knowledge, that a round in August and another in the fall were possible. Engadget, on May 21, reported that Meta said it did not anticipate further “company-wide” layoffs this year. The record we can read shows no August or fall notice so far, though team-level cuts under the WARN thresholds would not show. For the broader market, see our tech layoffs tracker for 2026 and AI layoffs attribution ledger.

Round by round: dated event table

Press figures are labelled and are not in any total of filed numbers. March’s “about 700” comes from The Register by way of PocketGamer.biz. CNBC put January at about 1,000, and GeekWire at 1,500.

Grey: the figure from Meta or press. Blue: workers named in WARN files read. WARN is U.S. only and partial, and may include people in other rounds.

The share of a round that lands in the U.S. WARN files we read jumped in 2026. It was 41% of the 2022 round, 37% of 2023’s and 59% of May 2026’s. Meta’s 2023 post said international timelines would differ, and some 2023 cuts ran through the end of that year, so the 2023 share could be understated. We can’t tell from the files whether May 2026 skewed more American or whether notices simply came earlier. Either way, a rising share matters for anyone reading WARN files as a proxy.

Which sites took the cuts: the heat table

Workers named in the notices, by round, with darker meaning more. Washington’s rows after 2022 are built from each letter’s address list. New York’s April 2023 count (343) is listed against 770 Broadway with two other addresses left blank. October 2025’s letter says “approximately 101” while its address lines add to 98, so 3 are shown unplaced.

Menlo Park carries the most: 5,606 workers, and 2,212 in May 2026 alone, all listed by California at one address, 1 Hacker Way, in a change from the building-by-building lists of 2022 and 2023. Washington moved up sharply: 2,721 workers in total, led by Bellevue with 1,152, and 231 of May’s 1395 were remote staff living in the state. New York shows 1,762 across 2022 and 2023, and no Meta notice since May 2023. That is a real pattern in the file, but New York’s list is posted with a lag, so it could still change. Texas appears only in 2022, for 222 workers at four Austin addresses.

Reality Labs and AI: what Meta’s own letters show

None of the top-ranking pages we opened uses this source. Meta’s letters to Washington attach a list of affected positions by team group and job profile. We counted those lists, keeping only team and job totals and dropping anything personal. Meta’s public filings say little about teams. These letters do.

Our grouping of Meta’s team names by keyword, applied to Washington letters only. “Reality Labs names” means RL, Horizon, Metaverse, XR Tech, Wearables, MR Hardware or VR in the team name. Parsed rows reconcile to the letter except May (1,367 of 1,395), March (166 of 168) and October (98 listed, 101 stated).

January 2026 was a Reality Labs cut, on Meta’s own paperwork: 321 of 331 Washington positions sit in teams such as Metaverse Content, Horizon OS and RL Research, and the job list runs to 30 physical science researchers and 22 artists. October 2025 was the AI reorganization: 58 of 98 sit in teams such as FAIR, MSL Infra and Meta AI, matching the roughly 600 AI cut a spokesperson confirmed. March 2026 was wearables and hiring: 61% in Reality Labs names, mostly Wearables, plus 30 recruiters. May 2026 was the broad one, with no single team above 4% of the list: 23% in Reality Labs names, 15% in app names and 60% across infrastructure, ads, privacy and other groups. Filings separately tie restructuring to Reality Labs in dollars: $515 million in 2022 and $612 million in 2023, and $84 million in 2024.

Charges: what the cuts cost

Pre-tax, from the restructuring note in each Form 10-K, by major activity. 2023’s data center line was a $224 million credit, left off the bar and included in the $3.45 billion total. The 2026 figure is severance only, from the Form 10-Q. Meta’s filings show no restructuring amount for 2025.

Severance was the smallest part of the first wave. Office consolidation cost more than twice as much in both 2022 and 2023: $2.30 billion against $975 million and $2.51 billion against $1.17 billion. The 2026 round so far discloses only severance. Per person, the charge has climbed: near $89,000 in 2022, $117,000 in 2023 and $147.5,000 in 2026, by our arithmetic, dividing by the stated cut. Global mix and rounding move those figures, and the 2022 cut was not all paid in 2022. Meta did not use SEC Item 2.05 for any of this: its 2022 and 2023 announcements were furnished under Item 7.01, and we found no 8-K for the 2026 rounds. The company reported 2026 severance in its July earnings release. For comparison, see how Google’s filings treated its 2023 charge, and how IBM reports only dollars.

The terms changed in the paperwork too. The Form 10-K for 2023 spelled out U.S. severance of 16 weeks of base pay plus two weeks for every year of service. The Form 10-K for 2025 now says only that packages include “severance payments,” with no week count. In 2022, Mark Zuckerberg wrote, “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.” We found no Newsroom post for the 2026 rounds, whose wording reached the public through memos reported by the press.

What this means for MSPs

The checkable part is the talent list. Meta’s May letter names, for Washington alone, 67 production engineers, 86 data engineers, 97 technical program managers and 544 software engineers including managers, with separation dates of July 22, 2026. That date has passed. Advice, not a finding: an MSP hiring in Seattle, Bellevue or Redmond should expect these candidates to be months into a search, and should test for small-environment skills instead of assuming them. If you use WARN notices to watch vendors, note the lesson of February 2025: a cut described as about 5% of staff produced no row in any file we read.

Frequently asked questions

How many people has Meta laid off since 2022?

Meta’s own statements and filings add up to about 29,000: more than 11,000 in 2022, around 10,000 in 2023 and about 8,000 in May 2026. Press reports add about 5% of staff in early 2025, about 600 in October 2025, about 1,500 in January 2026 and about 700 in March 2026. WARN files we read name 14,509 workers, a floor.

How many people did Meta lay off in 2023?

Meta said around 10,000 in its March 14, 2023 Newsroom post, on top of more than 11,000 in November 2022. WARN notices dated 2023 name 3,745 workers in California, New York and New Jersey. Severance and other personnel charges for 2023 were $1.17 billion.

Did Meta have layoffs in 2020 or 2021?

We found no company-wide round in those years. No row filed by Meta or Facebook appears in the California, Washington, New York, Texas or Maryland files for 2020 or 2021, and headcount rose from 44,942 at the end of 2019 to 71,970 at the end of 2021.

Are there Meta layoffs in November 2026?

Not in the record as of November 5, 2026. The latest Meta notices are dated May 22, 2026. Washington’s database through November 4 and California’s file through November 2 show nothing newer. CNBC reported in May that sources expected more rounds, while Engadget reported that a staff memo said no further company-wide layoffs were anticipated this year.

How much severance does Meta pay?

Meta’s 2023 Form 10-K describes U.S. severance of 16 weeks of base pay plus two weeks per year of service. The Form 10-K for 2025 no longer states that formula. Dividing charges by stated cuts gives near $89,000 a person in 2022, $117,000 in 2023 and $147.5,000 in 2026, which is our arithmetic.

Why is Meta’s headcount falling while it spends more?

Filings show both at once. Headcount fell 15% in a year to 66,775 at September 30, 2026, while capital expenditures in that quarter alone were $34.91 billion. Staff memos quoted by CNBC tie the May cut to offsetting other investments. Filings give no causal split, so we cannot say how much of the cut funds AI.

Methodology

References

1. Meta Platforms, Form 10-Q for September 30, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
2. Meta Platforms, Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
3. Meta Platforms, Form 10-K for 2025. Accessed November 2026.
4. Meta Platforms, Form 10-K for 2024. Accessed November 2026.
5. Meta Platforms, Form 10-K for 2023. Accessed November 2026.
6. Meta Platforms, Form 10-K for 2022. Accessed November 2026.
7. Meta Platforms, third-quarter 2026 earnings release. Accessed November 2026.
8. Meta Platforms, second-quarter 2026 earnings release. Accessed November 2026.
9. Meta Platforms, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, November 9, 2022. Accessed November 2026.
10. Meta Platforms, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, March 14, 2023. Accessed November 2026.
11. Meta Platforms, filing index, SEC EDGAR. Accessed November 2026.
12. Meta Newsroom, Mark Zuckerberg’s message to employees, November 9, 2022. Accessed November 2026.
13. Meta Newsroom, update on the year of efficiency, March 14, 2023. Accessed November 2026.
14. Meta letter to Washington ESD, May 22, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
15. Meta letter to Washington ESD, March 30, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
16. Meta letter to Washington ESD, January 16, 2026. Accessed November 2026.
17. Meta letter to Washington ESD, October 22, 2025. Accessed November 2026.
18. California EDD, WARN reports. Accessed November 2026.
19. Washington ESD, WARN database. Accessed November 2026.
20. New York DOL, WARN dashboard. Accessed November 2026.
21. Texas Open Data Portal, WARN notices. Accessed November 2026.
22. New Jersey Department of Labor, WARN archive. Accessed November 2026.
23. CNBC, May 18, 2026 (press). Accessed November 2026.
24. CNBC, October 22, 2025 (press, with spokesperson). Accessed November 2026.
25. CNBC, January 14, 2025 (press, quoting staff message). Accessed November 2026.
26. GeekWire, January 20, 2026 (press). Accessed November 2026.
27. GeekWire, March 31, 2026 (press). Accessed November 2026.
28. Engadget, May 21, 2026 (press, quoting memo). Accessed November 2026.
29. PocketGamer.biz, March 26, 2026 (press, citing The Register). Accessed November 2026.
30. Business Insider, Meta layoffs timeline (press). Accessed November 2026.
31. Fortune, May 21, 2026 (press, compared). Accessed November 2026.
32. Layoffs.fyi, Meta page (compared, not counted). Accessed November 2026.