Unsplash: Mariia Shalabaieva
Meta is facing a new lawsuit from a group of current employees who claim the company relied on artificial intelligence systems and performance algorithms to determine layoffs, disproportionately affecting workers who were on protected medical, parental, or family leave.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Oakland, California, by 26 anonymous Meta employees. It comes after the company announced in May that it would cut around 8,000 jobs, representing roughly 10% of its workforce.
Although the plaintiffs have been notified that they are being laid off, they remain employed by Meta, with their separations scheduled to begin on July 22.
According to the complaint, Meta used internal AI systems, keystroke and activity monitoring data, AI token usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance rankings to help decide which employees would be laid off.
The workers argue that those systems failed to account for legally protected leave, resulting in lower performance scores for employees who were temporarily away from work.
Meta/Firefly
Lawsuit claims Meta’s AI systems penalized employees on protected leave
The lawsuit alleges that many of the performance metrics used during the layoff process “by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability.”
According to the filing, Meta “did not pause the system for the individualized, leave-and-accommodation-neutral review that the law requires,” leading to workers on protected leave being selected for layoffs at a disproportionately higher rate.
Each of the 26 plaintiffs had either taken protected leave or requested or received a reasonable accommodation for a disability.
Many of the employees were on pregnancy or parental leave, during which they were naturally producing less work because they were away from their jobs. Others took medical leave, including one employee who disclosed what the lawsuit describes as a “serious health condition and disability” approved by Meta’s own provider.
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The lawsuit alleges that the employee was warned by a manager that taking leave would result in being selected during the anticipated layoffs. It also claims Meta did not provide an accommodation for the employee’s disability.
About half of the plaintiffs had taken leave related to caregiving or pregnancy. Eight are women who took maternity or pregnancy-related leave, four are men who took parental leave, and one plaintiff took leave to care for a family member before later taking bereavement leave.
Meta denied the allegations in a statement, saying: “The claims lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”
The lawsuit accuses Meta of violating several state and federal laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
It also argues that the company’s use of algorithmically assisted performance evaluations created a “disparate impact” on protected groups, particularly women, who are statistically more likely to take pregnancy and caregiving leave.
The latest lawsuit adds to a growing list of legal challenges facing Meta.
Earlier this month, the company was also named in a separate case brought by four US states seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties over allegations that Facebook and Instagram contributed to a youth mental health crisis by prioritizing engagement over child safety.
Meta has denied those claims and called the proposed penalties “outlandish.”
