A group of Meta employees has filed a lawsuit alleging the company used AI systems to identify workers on protected leave for layoffs, claims the tech giant strongly denies.
Meta is facing a lawsuit from dozens of current employees who claim the company used artificial intelligence tools to identify workers for layoffs, unfairly targeting people who had taken maternity leave, medical leave or disability accommodations.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, centres on Meta’s workforce reduction earlier this year, which affected around 8,000 employees across the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
According to the 71-page complaint, Meta relied on “a constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems” that analysed employee performance ratings, productivity metrics and activity-monitoring data, including keystrokes, to rank staff for redundancy.
The lawsuit alleges: “Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work.”
Instead, it claims AI systems were used “to score, rank and select employees for inclusion on the list.”
The 26 named plaintiffs argue that employees on protected leave were unfairly disadvantaged because they generated less workplace activity data while away from work.
The complaint states: “The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights.”
Among the plaintiffs is a scientist who was informed she was being laid off just two days before giving birth while on approved pregnancy leave. Another engineer alleges his performance rating was lowered after taking time off to recover from an injury.
Meta has denied the allegations.
A spokesperson for the tech giant said: “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”
The case also challenges Meta’s employee-monitoring programme, introduced earlier this year, which collected data including keystrokes, mouse activity, browser history, emails and messages on company devices to help train AI systems.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said the initiative would allow AI models to “learn from watching really smart people do things.”
Following backlash from employees, including a petition signed by more than 1,600 staff members, Meta paused the monitoring programme in June.
The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction to halt the layoffs, an independent audit of Meta’s AI systems, and compensation that could include reinstatement, back pay, lost benefits and equity.
They have also asked the court to keep their identities anonymous while legal proceedings continue.
Lawsuit claims that Meta used AI to tag workers who took leave for job cuts
