Meta Accused Of Giving Some Laid-Off Workers Different Severance Package

Soon after Elon Musk laid off around half of Twitter's employees, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that his company would also slash its workforce. The company laid off more than 11,000 workers, promising them a severance package that included 16 weeks of their base pay and six months of healthcare coverage, among other things. The severance was intended to support now-former employees while they looked for new jobs, but some laid-off workers claim they aren't on the receiving end of those promises.

This isn't the first complaint we've heard from recently laid-off tech workers who claim they've been offered different severance packages than anticipated. Shortly after Musk cut Twitter's workforce, the company's laid-off workers in Africa claimed that they were only offered their benefits until December 4, 2022, a substantial downgrade from what their colleagues in the U.S. received. In Meta's case, the complaint comes from a group of laid-off employees who worked under the company's Sourcer Development Program.

The disgruntled former employees shared the details with CNBC, claiming that they have been given only half of the severance package that employees were promised — namely, three months of healthcare coverage and eight weeks of base pay rather than the six months and 16 weeks given to others. Though working under short-term employment at least initially, these laid-off employees say they were full-time workers who received health insurance and similar perks with the exception of company stock. 

A letter was reportedly written to Meta from the affected individuals who go on to allege that they were told their jobs wouldn't necessarily be impacted by the layoffs and that now-former managers operated under the belief this team was slated to get the same severance benefits as other full-time workers. The laid-off employees are giving Meta the benefit of the doubt, stating a hope that the reduced severance is the result of a "clerical mistake," but the matter remains murky at this time, as the company hasn't publicly commented on the claims.