Tech giant Meta has fired around two dozen employees in LA for using $25 meal credits to buy everyday items including acne pads, wine glasses and detergent.
The employees were fired last week, days before the social media behemoth, run by Mark Zuckerberg, began laying off employees from WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs, its VR development arm.
Many of Silicon Valley’s biggest players, including Meta, will offer free food to employees at on-site canteens at their larger offices.
For smaller offices, including Meta’s Los Angeles hub, staff are given Uber eats or Grubhub credits to get food deliveries sent in.
At Meta, staff are allowed to spend $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner every day, but aren’t allowed to buy anything else with the credits.
But the employees who were sacked were deemed to have abused the system for a long time, a person familiar with the matter told the FT, adding that those who only violated the policy occasionally were reprimanded.
The employees were fired last week, days before the social media behemoth, run by Mark Zuckerberg (pictured), began a major restructuring
Tech giant Meta has fired around two dozen employees in LA for using $25 meal credits to buy everyday items including acne pads, wine glasses and detergent (File image)
Some employees were reportedly pooling their money together, while others were getting meals sent home despite Meta only allowing credits to be used in the office.
In one post to Blind, an anonymous messaging site, a former Meta staffer bragged about buying toothpaste and tea from the pharmacy Rite Aid.
They added: ‘On days where I would not be eating at the office, like if my husband was cooking or if I was grabbing dinner with friends, I figured I ought not to waste the dinner credit.’
The former worker, who claimed to be on a $400,000 salary and worked on both nights and weekends, added that they admitted to the oversight after Meta’s HR began looking into the practice.
They added that they were not expecting to be fired: ‘It was almost surreal that this was happening.’
Meta declined to comment on the firings to the FT.
The sackings came as Meta began laying off employees across units including Instagram, WhatsApp and Reality Labs, the Verge reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
A Meta spokesperson told Reuters in a statement that a few of its teams were making changes to align with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.
‘This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like these when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees,’ the spokesperson said.
The Verge report did not specify the exact number of job cuts but mentioned that they were small. Meta also did not comment on the numbers.
Meta has slashed around 21,000 jobs since November 2022 to keep costs low with CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling 2023 the ‘Year of Efficiency’.
