Meta has terminated approximately twenty employees in Los Angeles for misusing meal vouchers intended for purchasing personal or household items (such as pads, laundry detergent, or wine glasses). According to Arstechnica, some workers pooled their funds to buy more expensive items, or ordered dinner to be delivered at home rather than to the office.
The firings occurred amid broader layoffs, which include restructuring teams within WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs, the augmented and virtual reality division.
Like most tech companies, Meta provides free meals for employees working in its offices—through credits, for instance, for Uber Eats or Grubhub for food delivery to the office. Staff receive $20 for breakfast and $25 for lunch and dinner; however, some employees had been "misusing the system for an extended period" and had received warnings, but until now, no terminations had occurred.
In a post on the anonymous messaging platform Blind
Blind verifies whether a user works at a specific company but does not require them to disclose their identity., a former Meta employee stated that she used her $25 credit for items such as toothpaste and tea from Rite Aid. The woman indicated that she earned $400,000 a year and added that the termination notice felt "surreal" to her.
Meta declined to comment on the layoffs but provided information regarding team changes:
“Today, several teams at Meta are making adjustments to align resources with their long-term strategic goals. This includes relocating some teams to other locations and moving some employees into different roles. When a position is eliminated, we work diligently to find other opportunities for affected employees.”
Zuckerberg announced the reduction of about 21,000 jobs in two rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, calling the latest a "year of efficiency." He also canceled low-priority projects in an effort to expedite slow growth and alleviate investor concerns regarding his costly bet on the metaverse.
Comments (0)
There are no comments for now