Meta Faces Lawsuit Over AI Use in Disproportionate Layoffs of Disabled and Sick Employees

In May, Meta conducted a major workforce reduction, cutting about 10% of its staff, approximately 8,000 employees, as part of cost-cutting efforts amid heavy investments in AI infrastructure. This week, a group of 26 current and former employees filed a federal lawsuit in California accusing Meta of using internal AI systems to disproportionately target workers with disabilities and those on medical or family leave for layoffs.

The plaintiffs claim Meta relied on AI metrics such as productivity scores and token usage, units AI models use to process text, to decide who would be fired. According to the lawsuit, these AI tools inherently penalized employees who were absent due to protected medical or family leave or whose output was lower due to disabilities, violating anti-discrimination laws. The complaint also alleges that AI agents analyzed employee communications and documents to generate individual performance outputs, and that monitoring tools assessed employee performance over the past year.

Among the plaintiffs, one employee was terminated two days before her due date after being approved for parental leave, and another was on medical leave for a serious health condition. All had either requested or received accommodations or leave prior to their dismissal. The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the layoffs.

Meta has denied the allegations, stating that layoff decisions were made by humans, not AI, and called the claims baseless and unsupported by facts, according to a statement to the Wall Street Journal.