Ex-Facebook employees say they were only hired to hurt the competition

Meta (formerly Facebook) is among the big tech companies laying off thousands of employees lately. They cut 11,000 jobs in November and added another 10,000 last March.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg blames himself for the layoffs. Because of the rise of his social networks (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) during the Corona period, he was too optimistic about the future. Now the new employees are no longer needed.

That doesn’t seem to have been the only problem with the original jobs, however, judging from former employees.

Set to dust

(Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta. (Image: Facebook)

Some of the dismissed have spoken out and said that they had practically nothing to do since they were hired. The Wall Street Journal even reports that some meta employees were hired to explicitly not work.

The reasons for this strange situation were therefore varied, but they were essentially based on two factors:

• First Meta was in a pronounced growth spurt. The social media company’s balance sheets looked so good that departments had enough money to hire new employees.
• The second reason was apparently poaching talent from competitors, even if they didn’t play an active role in the company – i.e. didn’t work.

Testimonials from ex-employees

“Brit” (as she calls herself) was employed by Meta with nothing to do. (Image: Tiktok)

Under the hashtag #MetaLayoffs many former Meta employees share their experiences on various social media platforms.

There was a woman named Britney who posted a video about it on TikTok. She says that she and her colleagues were “collected like Pokemon cards.” She says that “they literally scrambled to find work.”

For them, the goal of Meta was that other companies shouldn’t have access to this talent.

Madelyn Machado also worked for Meta as a recruiter until recently. According to the Wall Street Journal, she claims that Meta has far too many recruiters that nobody needs.

SShe is open about her salary of $190,000 a year – and about the fact that, despite the large sum, no one asked her to hire anyone in the first year. Her superiors reportedly didn’t want to change anything when Machado brought it up.

The veracity of these statements is difficult to assess. Either way, however, they cannot ensure more peace around the huge meta group.

So that’s what happens behind the scenes at Meta – at least if you believe what the former employees say. What would you say if you were hired for 190,000 euros and had nothing to do? Dream job or unbearable boredom? Let us know what you think about it in the comments!