Meta's AI-Driven Layoffs Allegedly Disproportionately Affected Employees on Protected Leave
A new lawsuit claims Meta's AI-based layoff selection process disproportionately impacted employees who had taken protected leave, including pregnancy, medical, and disability-related absences. The plaintiffs allege violations of the ADA, FMLA, and other laws, and seek a preliminary injunction to halt their separations. Meta denies the claims, stating decisions were made by people, not AI.
A scientist was selected for layoff while on pre-birth pregnancy leave. A manager was demoted after a medical leave, then chosen for termination weeks into a second medical leave. An engineer's performance rating was lowered due to the “broken time” caused by an injury that kept him from working.
These are among the allegations raised by 26 current and former Meta employees who were included in the company's May reduction in force, according to a lawsuit filed this month in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The plaintiffs allege that Meta used artificial intelligence-based systems that “disproportionally” selected for layoff workers who had taken or requested protected leave in the previous two years, as part of the company's approximately 10% reduction in force.
“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems … to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the list.”
According to the complaint, the AI tools rely on inputs such as “performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, ‘AI-native' ratings, and AI-token consumption — that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability.” The company did not “neutralize” those inputs to account for protected leave, nor did it exclude employees who had taken such leave or sought accommodations from the layoff selection process.
“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 to these leaves,” the lawsuit alleges.
The workers contend that these actions violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
A Meta spokesperson responded, saying the claims “lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”
The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent Meta from finalizing their separations, according to the lawsuit.