Meta faces allegations of biased AI practices in workforce reduction.

A group of 26 ex-Meta employees has filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that it utilized AI tools to unfairly target workers on leave during layoffs. According to the lawsuit, Meta allegedly based its layoff decisions on performance data gathered by a network of internal AI tools, neglecting to exclude employees on parental or medical leave from its evaluation process.

The employees claim that this approach led to a disproportionate number of those on protected leave being selected for layoffs, as the scoring system did not account for their legal rights to take such leaves and effectively penalized them for doing so. The layoffs in question took place in May, part of Meta’s strategy to reduce its workforce by 10 percent, equating to around 8,000 positions.

The former employees assert that Meta employed an internal AI assistant known as Metamate, along with AI agents trained by employees, internal dashboards for AI token usage, and other tools to evaluate, rank, and determine which employees would be included in the termination list. The lawsuit claims that this practice violates federal and state laws that protect workers from being terminated for taking authorized leave. In response, a Meta spokesperson stated that these allegations are unfounded and emphasized that workforce management decisions were made by people, not AI.