by England’s Anwar Almojarkesh (L) and Alan Chalabi (R) take a picture at the Meta (formerly Facebook) corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, California on November 9, 2022.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
A group of Meta Workers who joined the company through an on-the-job training program report receiving worse severance pay compared to other workers recently laid off.
The employees are members of Meta’s Sourcer Development Program, which aims to help employees from diverse backgrounds pursue careers in enterprise technology recruitment. The Sourcer Development Program is part of Meta’s Pathways program, which helps people from non-traditional professional backgrounds gain training with the social networking giant for a variety of roles.
Nearly every member of Meta’s Sourcer Development Program, more than 60 employees, was fired from the company as part of the massive layoff of more than 11,000 employees in early November, several Meta employees told CNBC.
Several members of Meta’s Sourcer Development Program told CNBC they joined Meta in April as part of the company’s newest cohort. The employees said they were not contract workers but were classified as short-term workers who received all the benefits of full-time employees, including insurance and pension plans, but no company stock packages. Upon completion of the 12-month program, employees would then be converted to full-time positions if they met the required criteria.
In a letter sent to Meta employees and posted online during the layoffs, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would pay a severance payment of 16 weeks of base salary plus an additional two weeks for each year of service with no cap. Zuckerberg added that Meta would cover health care costs for people and their families for six months.
But members of Meta’s Sourcer Development Program said they only get 8 weeks of base pay and three months of COBRA.
The workers said it was unclear why they were receiving lower severance pay than their colleagues, given they were full-time employees and not contract employees.
On November 16, the affected workers sent a letter to Zuckerberg and other Meta executives, including Meta’s HR director Lori Goler and Chief Operating Officer Javier Olivan, informing Meta management of their severance situation and asking for help in resolving the issue .
“Even our former managers insisted that we were confused and that they were only informed that we were being offered 16 weeks’ salary and 6 months’ health insurance,” the group wrote in the letter.
They later added: “Leadership may not have been aware that the last SDP class, which began in April 2022, received repeated assurances from its leadership that a potential layoff would not affect their current employment but would likely affect the ability of the.” company would detract from considering her a full-time position.”
The affected Meta employees said they received no replies from Meta’s human resources and management staff explaining their situation.
“In fact, during a recent question and answer session, Lori stated that the Pathways programs would not be impacted,” the letter reads. “Based on this information, we were repeatedly assured by our superiors that we did not have to apply for positions outside the company.”
“We understand that we are employed at will and that business needs are constantly evolving and changing, but we couldn’t help but feel that maybe something went wrong,” the group added.
The staff told CNBC that Meta has yet to respond to her letter, but sent gift packages to some members to congratulate them on completing the Sourcer Development Program.
“We hope that Meta offering only 8 weeks base salary and 3 months COBRA to the affected April 2023 SDP class is a clerical error and was not done with willful disregard or callousness,” the workers said in the letter.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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