3 ms·

Meta's job cuts surprised some employees who said they weren't low performers

13 points by croes 2y ago

gnabgib 2y ago
Discussion (20 points, 3 days ago, 9 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020119 (14 points, 1 day ago, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43038577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43038577 Related Laid-off Meta employees blast Zuckerberg: the 'cruelest tech company out there' (22 points, 5 hours ago, 11 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43048253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43048253
cratermoon 2y ago
Has anyone looked at the demographics of who Meta fired? It's been about a month since Meta killed off it's DEI programs[1], are we sure they didn't simply fire people based on discriminatory criteria, and using the "low performer" claim to cloak the practice? 1 https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees-trump https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees...
- zaptrem 2y ago
  What incentive would they have to do that?
  - cratermoon 2y ago
    Discriminatory termination is against the law. A company may use "low performing" as a pretext. Of course under the current administration maybe Meta has nothing to worry about.
    - zaptrem 2y ago
      I meant "what incentive would they have to just now start discriminating against their high performers?" This is a multi trillion $ mega-corp with thousands of metric and profit-focused decision makers, not Judd's Confederate Bake Shop.
      - cratermoon 2y ago
        Let me repeat my previous observation: Meta killed off it's DEI programs[1] 1 https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees... > high performers I'm not sure where you got that. There's a vast middle between low performer and high performer. > profit-focused decision makers, not Judd's Confederate Bake Shop. Have you been paying attention to Zuckerberg?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
gamblor956 2y ago
People are saying that Meta's motivation is to avoid unemployment payments, etc. In the U.S., an employer pays a small tax/fee to the state labor department, which administers unemployment. The employer's fee is calculated like an insurance premium, so every terminated employee who claims unemployment increases the employer's costs by a little bit. A single terminated employee will increase a large company's UI fee the next year by less than a dollar, because the fee is based on unemployment benefits, not the employee's salary (so having super-highly paid employees doesn't make a difference). Terminated employees qualify for unemployment unless they are terminated for-cause, meaning a violation of the law, employment agreement, or employee handbook. Termination for low performance is not "for cause" in any state, and employer who claims such is committing labor fraud for which the minimum fine per violation is in the thousands of tens of thousands (depending on the state)...on top of exposing themselves to significant legal liability to the terminated employee (back pay plus additional damages for any financial harm suffered from the employee's loss of access to unemployment. TLDR: in the context of unemployment expenses, the risk-adjusted benefit of mislabeling an employee's cause for termination is not worth it. Also important, "low performance" is not an excuse to violate the WARN Act; any mass termination of employees (excluding those terminated for cause) that satisfies the threshold will trigger WARN ACT responsibilities (meaning, 60 days notice or 60 days' pay to waive notice). A number of states also have their own versions of the WARN Act which might impose additional responsibilities on the employer. The penalty for violating the WARN Act is up to 60 days pay and benefits, with interest; some states have additional penalties on top of that, such as a $500 fine/day/location for the notice-failure period. So Meta's not laying people off and calling them "low performers" to minimize their unemployment costs because it won't. As others have pointed out in other threads, most of the employees laid off were involved in diversity efforts in some manner, and now that Zuckerberg has gone far-right and embraced Trump, he's laying these employees off and calling them "low performing" to curry favor with his new billionaire buddy (look at the language Trump uses when he fires someone). It's unlikely that Meta is trying to replace the terminated employees with cheaper H1Bs because part of the GOP's Project 2025 plan is to eliminate the H1B program entirely.

13 points by croes 2y ago

Discussion (20 points, 3 days ago, 9 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43020119 (14 points, 1 day ago, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43038577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43038577 Related Laid-off Meta employees blast Zuckerberg: the 'cruelest tech company out there' (22 points, 5 hours ago, 11 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43048253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43048253

cratermoon 2y ago

Has anyone looked at the demographics of who Meta fired? It's been about a month since Meta killed off it's DEI programs[1], are we sure they didn't simply fire people based on discriminatory criteria, and using the "low performer" claim to cloak the practice? 1 https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees-trump https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees...

zaptrem 2y ago
What incentive would they have to do that?
- cratermoon 2y ago
  Discriminatory termination is against the law. A company may use "low performing" as a pretext. Of course under the current administration maybe Meta has nothing to worry about.
  - zaptrem 2y ago
    I meant "what incentive would they have to just now start discriminating against their high performers?" This is a multi trillion $ mega-corp with thousands of metric and profit-focused decision makers, not Judd's Confederate Bake Shop.
    - cratermoon 2y ago
      Let me repeat my previous observation: Meta killed off it's DEI programs[1] 1 https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees https://www.axios.com/2025/01/10/meta-dei-programs-employees... > high performers I'm not sure where you got that. There's a vast middle between low performer and high performer. > profit-focused decision makers, not Judd's Confederate Bake Shop. Have you been paying attention to Zuckerberg?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

gamblor956 2y ago

People are saying that Meta's motivation is to avoid unemployment payments, etc. In the U.S., an employer pays a small tax/fee to the state labor department, which administers unemployment. The employer's fee is calculated like an insurance premium, so every terminated employee who claims unemployment increases the employer's costs by a little bit. A single terminated employee will increase a large company's UI fee the next year by less than a dollar, because the fee is based on unemployment benefits, not the employee's salary (so having super-highly paid employees doesn't make a difference). Terminated employees qualify for unemployment unless they are terminated for-cause, meaning a violation of the law, employment agreement, or employee handbook. Termination for low performance is not "for cause" in any state, and employer who claims such is committing labor fraud for which the minimum fine per violation is in the thousands of tens of thousands (depending on the state)...on top of exposing themselves to significant legal liability to the terminated employee (back pay plus additional damages for any financial harm suffered from the employee's loss of access to unemployment. TLDR: in the context of unemployment expenses, the risk-adjusted benefit of mislabeling an employee's cause for termination is not worth it. Also important, "low performance" is not an excuse to violate the WARN Act; any mass termination of employees (excluding those terminated for cause) that satisfies the threshold will trigger WARN ACT responsibilities (meaning, 60 days notice or 60 days' pay to waive notice). A number of states also have their own versions of the WARN Act which might impose additional responsibilities on the employer. The penalty for violating the WARN Act is up to 60 days pay and benefits, with interest; some states have additional penalties on top of that, such as a $500 fine/day/location for the notice-failure period. So Meta's not laying people off and calling them "low performers" to minimize their unemployment costs because it won't. As others have pointed out in other threads, most of the employees laid off were involved in diversity efforts in some manner, and now that Zuckerberg has gone far-right and embraced Trump, he's laying these employees off and calling them "low performing" to curry favor with his new billionaire buddy (look at the language Trump uses when he fires someone). It's unlikely that Meta is trying to replace the terminated employees with cheaper H1Bs because part of the GOP's Project 2025 plan is to eliminate the H1B program entirely.