In 2023, Meta closed hundreds of offices around the country and laid off thousands of employees. These massive cuts cost Meta around 3.5 billion dollars, with the company paying affected employees a total of 1 billion dollars in severance pay. The other 2.5 billion dollars were used to close and consolidate Meta office spaces. Several rounds of layoffs occurred at the company last year, and Meta’s overall workforce decreased by around 22%. The reason Meta made these large cuts last year was to improve the profit margins at the company. This is partially due to the significant increase in operating costs at Meta as the Metaverse and virtual reality continue to generate billions of dollars in losses Meta’s actions allowed the company to increase its revenue by 16% despite the significant increase in operating costs due to the development of new products.
See "Meta laid off thousands of employees and closed hundreds of office locations last year to increase profit margin", Peter Kafka, Business Insider, February 6, 2024