Some sacked Meta workers didn’t get severance as committed by CEO

NEW DELHI: Several Meta employees, sacked by the company last month, have claimed they did not get the severance package as promised by Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In one of the worst lay-offs ever in the tech industry, Zuckerberg sacked more than 11,000 employees - about 13 per cent of the global workforce - and extended hiring freeze through Q1 2023.

According to a report, employees who joined Meta via a corporate training programme claim “they are receiving inferior severance packages compared to other workers who were recently laid off”.

The employees are members of Meta’s sourcer development programme, which, in turn, is part of the company’s Pathways programme.

The laid off members of the programme said they were not contract workers and were categorised as short-term employees and received all the benefits of full-time employees, including insurance and retirement funds but not corporate stock packages.

Zuckerberg had promised severance of 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap.

“We’ll cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months,” said Zuckerberg, adding the company will “provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads”. However, members of the sourcer development programme said they only received 8 weeks of base pay and three months of continuation of health coverage.

The affected workers sent a letter to Zuckerberg and other Meta executives, asking for help to resolve the issue. However, they have not received any replies from Meta so far.

Meta did not comment on the report.