Meta used AI workplace tools to target employees on medical leave, lawsuit alleges
A group of 26 former and current Meta employees has filed a lawsuit alleging the company used AI-driven workplace tools to unfairly target workers on medical or parental leave for layoffs. The plaintiffs claim that AI metrics failed to account for time away from work, effectively penalizing protected leave as underperformance.
Why it matters
This case highlights the growing legal and ethical concerns regarding the use of AI in corporate human resources and performance management.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Bloomberg/Getty Images Twenty-six employees sued Meta, saying it used AI systems to help select workers for layoffs. The lawsuit says AI usage metrics penalized workers who took medical, parental, or disability leave. A Meta spokesperson said that the "claims lack merit and are not based on facts." Meta used AI-powered workplace systems to penalize employees for taking medical and parental leave and then selected them for layoffs, according to allegations in a new lawsuit. The complaint, filed by 26 current and former workers on Monday in federal court in Northern California, alleges that Meta relied on AI-assisted tools and employee-monitoring data to score and rank workers before cutting about 8,000 jobs in May. The plaintiffs allege that the process relied on metrics such as work output, software development activity, and AI tool usage that employees could not accrue while on protected leave.
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