Laid-off Meta employees vent after latest culling

Technology

From ThomasBarbara

March 16, 2023 | 1:15 p.m

Meta employees affected by the Facebook owner’s latest round of layoffs are venting online – and more than one is complaining about being given a pink note while on maternity leave.

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant this week announced plans to lay off another 10,000 employees across its business – expanding a company-wide cull that began with around 11,000 layoffs last November.

Sara Schneider — one of the workers eliminated as part of CEO Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency” in a massive cost-cutting push — had worked as a recruiter for Meta since January 2020, according to her LinkedIn account.

“Unfortunately my maternity leave at Meta has been cut due to the brutal Meta layoffs. I spent an amazing 3 years at a company that had so many memories and worked with the best teams and incredible people,” Schneider wrote in a viral LinkedIn post.

“This dismissal was not merit-based,” she added.

Schneider’s post revealed that she “had been suffering from a near-fatal postpartum hemorrhage 8 hours after giving birth.”

“While it’s incredibly traumatic, I know I was kept alive for a reason. It gives me perspective, that I have a purpose, and the hills and valleys of life are just that — temporary,” she wrote.

Another recruiter, Yevette Solmoro, said she was also laid off while on maternity leave after five years at Meta.

“It’s an exceptionally difficult pill to swallow considering this happened during my maternity leave. As you can imagine, I’m still processing what this could mean for my family,” Solmoro wrote on LinkedIn.

“Nonetheless, when I think back to my time at Meta, I’m incredibly grateful for the years I spent there and for having achieved important milestones, both personally and professionally,” she added.

Former senior technical recruiter Andi Allen blasted Zuckerberg for his handling of the situation.

“I don’t understand how #metalleadership miscalculated so much that they had to lay off thousands of employees and still want to claim they care about the people who work for them. Has Mark Zuckerberg taken a pay cut?” Allen said.

Leslie Whisler, Meta’s senior recruiting manager, said she was “affected along with 70% of my colleagues by recruiting at Meta.”

“It’s been a year of unusual circumstances and I’m proud of how I’ve guided my team through the uncertainty,” said Whisler.

Recruiter Robert Howard said he found out he was fired after losing access to the system early Wednesday.

“I woke up this morning like many of my friends and colleagues to find that my #meta system access has been terminated. (When I turned around at 4am I still had access but by 5am it was gone lol),” Howard wrote.

Another ousted recruiter, Mary Prescott, gave a first-hand account of her abrupt firing in an interview with Insider.

Prescott said she was “disappointed and frustrated” that Meta executives had taken so long to address their layoff plans, despite widespread leaks about the planned cuts ahead of Zuckerberg’s confirmation.

“The severance package is actually pretty good, and the email contained a lot of helpful information, but it was clearly a very impersonal, automated email,” Prescott said.

“I understand that in such a large company with so many affected workers, you can’t make it that personal, but I would have appreciated an email from my manager if he had that information,” she added.

Zuckerberg confirmed the sweeping cuts in a memo to employees this week, which was also posted on Meta’s website.

He noted that affected members of Meta’s recruiting team learned their fate on Wednesday, while the cuts would hit the company’s “tech groups” in late April and its “business groups” in late May.

“Over the next few months, organizational leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our organizations, canceling lower-priority projects, and lowering our hiring rates,” Zuckerberg wrote.

“With fewer hires, I’ve made the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our recruitment team,” he added.

The Post reached out to Meta for comment.