Tech giant Meta has been sued by 26 former employees who claim the company relied on AI-assisted performance metrics that unfairly singled out workers with disabilities and those who had taken medical leave during its latest round of job cuts.
The lawsuit, filed late Monday in federal court in Oakland, California, alleges that the Facebook parent used software that factored in measures such as productivity and AI token usage when deciding who to lay off.
According to the complaint, those metrics put employees who had been away from work because of medical conditions at an inherent disadvantage.
The plaintiffs, who filed the case anonymously, argue that workers on protected medical leave naturally had lower activity levels than colleagues who remained at work, making them more likely to be selected for layoffs.
Meta layoffs
The legal action follows Meta’s announcement earlier this year that it would eliminate about 10 percent of its global workforce, roughly 8,000 jobs, starting in May, with additional cuts planned afterward as part of a broader restructuring effort.
The former employees accuse Meta of violating federal and state laws that protect workers from discrimination based on disability, pregnancy or the use of legally protected medical leave.
The group includes employees from six jurisdictions, including California, New York and the District of Columbia.
Meta denies allegations
Responding to the series of allegations, Meta has denied any sort of bias or wrongdoing in the layoff cycle.
“Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” a company spokesperson said on Tuesday, adding that the claims have no merit.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the role AI played in the layoff process. The complaint does not claim that artificial intelligence made the final decisions on who lost their jobs.
Instead, it argues that AI-generated performance indicators became an important part of the evaluation process and failed to account for employees whose productivity had been affected by legitimate medical absences.
That distinction could prove significant as more companies adopt AI tools to help manage their workforces. Businesses are increasingly using software to analyze employee performance, identify trends and assist managers in making decisions.
But critics warn that these systems can produce biased outcomes if they rely too heavily on data without considering the context behind it.
For employees who had taken medical leave, lower productivity scores may simply have reflected time spent recovering from illness or managing a disability rather than poorer job performance, according to the lawsuit.
The case lands at a time when employers are under growing pressure to ensure that AI is used responsibly in the workplace. U.S. regulators have repeatedly cautioned that companies cannot escape liability for discriminatory outcomes simply because an algorithm was involved. Employers remain responsible for ensuring that AI-assisted decisions comply with anti-discrimination laws.
