A group of 26 Meta employees has filed a lawsuit accusing the company of using AI‑powered software to select workers for mass layoffs, allegedly targeting those on medical, parental, or family leave as well as employees with disabilities.
The complaint, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, on Monday, alleges that Meta relied on a variety of AI‑driven metrics—including internal AI systems, keystroke and activity monitoring, AI token‑usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance rankings—when making job cuts earlier this year.
According to the suit, many of these factors “by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability.” The plaintiffs claim Meta failed to account for protected leave in its scoring and did not pause the system for the individualized, leave‑ and accommodation‑neutral review required by law.
The plaintiffs are among roughly 8,000 employees—about 10 % of Meta’s workforce—that the company announced in May would be affected by the restructuring, with notices indicating that positions would be eliminated starting July 22.
The workers contend that Meta violated several state and federal statutes, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which prohibit discrimination or retaliation against employees who take leave, have disabilities, or are pregnant.
A group of 26 Meta employees sued the tech giant alleging it used AI-powered software to choose people for mass layoffs. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The employees also allege that Meta neglected to test its AI systems for bias, a practice they claim breaches recently enacted regulations in California and New York City aimed at curbing discriminatory algorithmic decision‑making.
Coming from six states—including California, New York, and Washington, D.C.—the plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the layoffs while their claims are pursued in private arbitration.
They argue that Meta’s arbitration agreements, which require individual dispute resolution, do not apply to requests for temporary relief such as an injunction to preserve employment status.
The plaintiffs are among the 8,000 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, that Meta said in May would be impacted by layoffs. (Photo Illustration by Onur Dogman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The lawsuit seeks only to preserve the current employment status of the plaintiffs, asking the court to keep them on the payroll while arbitration proceeds.
According to the filing, finalizing the terminations would cause irreparable harm that cannot be remedied solely by monetary damages, citing the loss of employer‑subsidized health coverage during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and active medical treatment.
Meta has denied the allegations, stating that workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.
Meta said that it does not use AI when determining who to cut from its workforce. (Arda Kucukkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images / Getty Images)
About half of the plaintiffs had taken leave for caregiving or pregnancy‑related reasons.
Eight of the employees are women who had taken maternity or pregnancy‑related leave; four are men who took parental leave; and one woman took leave to care for a family member and later bereavement leave.
The plaintiffs argue that Meta’s algorithmically assisted selection process, which records such absences as reduced performance, disproportionately impacts women because they are more likely to take pregnancy and caregiving leave.
