A few Meta workers reason they need to obtain promised severance

December 7, 2022: -A group of Meta workers who joined the firm via a corporate training program say they are taking inferior severance packages compared to other recently laid-off workers.

The employees are partners of Meta’s Sourcer Development Program, intended to support workers from diverse backgrounds getting careers in corporate technology recruiting. The Sourcer Development Program is a way of Meta’s Pathways schedule, which allows people with non-traditional professional backgrounds receive apprenticeships at the social networking firm for various roles.

Nearly every Meta’s Sourcer Development Program member, more than 60 workers, was let go from the firm as part of its massive layoff of over 11,000 workers earlier in November, multiple Meta employees.

Several Meta’s Sourcer Development Program members said they joined Meta as part of the firm’s latest cohort. The employees stated that they were not contracted employees and instead were categorized as short-term workers that received all the profits of full-time employees, which included insurance and retirement funds but not corporate stock packages. After finishing the 12-month program, the employees would be converted to complete-time employees if they met the necessary standards.

In a note sent to Meta employees in the layoffs and posted online, CEO Mark Zuckerberg of Meta added that the firm is paying severance of 16 weeks of base pay additional two additional weeks for each year of service, with no lid. Zuckerberg further said that Meta would cover the earnings of healthcare for the public and their families for six months.

But Meta’s Sourcer Development Program members said they only receive eight weeks of command pay and three months of COBRA.

The workers said it could be clearer why they receive lower severance packages than their colleagues, who consider them full-time employees and not contract teams.

On November 16, the impacted workers sent a note to Zuckerberg and other Meta leaders, which contained Meta’s head of people, Lori Goler and chief who operates officer Javier Olivan, which informed Meta management about their severance situation and which asks for help resolving the issue.

“Even our ex-managers insisted we lived not sure and that all the information they get was that we were providing 16 weeks of pay and six months of health insurance,” the group in the letter.

They later further said, “Administration may not have been aware that the last SDP class, which started in April 2022, was repeatedly assured by their leadership that the potential layoff would not impact their present employment but would an influence the firm’s ability to consider them for a full-time role.”

The affected Meta workers said they had yet to receive any replies from Meta’s human ways and leadership staff relying on their situation.