Meta workers say AI picked them for layoffs and sue to stop the next cut
The complaint names Metamate and algorithmic productivity scores as the deciders. Its theory is simple: a score you cannot earn on maternity leave is not a neutral metric.
- 26 current and former Meta employees sued the company on July 14 in the Northern District of California, alleging Meta used AI systems rather than managerial judgment to select layoff targets.
- The complaint names Metamate, Meta's internal LLM, and algorithmic productivity scores built from keystroke, browser, and email data, and argues those scores cannot be earned by employees on protected medical or family leave.
- The plaintiffs are seeking to block Meta's next layoff tranche, scheduled for July 22; Meta says the decisions were made by people, not AI.
The first big test of whether a company can blame the algorithm for a layoff just got filed. On July 14, 26 current and former Meta employees sued the company in the Northern District of California, alleging that Meta used "a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems" rather than human managers to decide who lost their jobs, Gizmodo reported.
The score you cannot earn on leave
The systems named in the complaint are specific: Metamate, Meta's internal LLM trained on employee communications; algorithmic productivity scores assembled from keystroke, browser-history, and email data; AI-assisted performance review tools; and even records of employees' AI token consumption. The legal theory hangs on one design flaw the plaintiffs allege is fatal: these scores "by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability," per CNBC. Of the 26 plaintiffs, several had taken pregnancy or parental leave; the filing describes a scientist selected for layoff while on maternity leave two days before giving birth. Meta responded that "workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI."
A deadline gives the case teeth
The suit ties to Meta's May layoff round of roughly 8,000 people, and it asks the court for a preliminary ruling blocking the next tranche scheduled for July 22. That deadline turns an abstract question into an urgent one, and it is the question every company automating personnel decisions is about to face: when an agent scores the workforce, who is accountable for what the score does. It lands in a labor summer already defined by that tension, from the public demanding a cut of AI's upside to Dimon confirming 30 to 40 percent cuts in some units. Meta says humans decided. A courtroom will now examine the token-consumption logs.