by - A former Meta employee said she was part of a group that had no work to do when she was hired.
- Britney Levy told Insider that some people are frustrated and feel like Meta is putting their careers on the line.
- A spokesman for Meta did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
Britney Levy, a meta employee who lost her job in the company’s first round of layoffs, said recent comments that the social media giant hadn’t exaggerated that the social media giant was paying employees for “sham work.”
“I’m one of those employees who was kind of put in a really weird position where they immediately put me in a group of people who weren’t working,” Levy said in a TikTok posted Saturday. “You had to fight to find work.”
In the video, which has since been viewed over 870,000 times, Levy said she felt Meta hired people so other companies couldn’t have them.
“They were just like hoarding us like Pokemon cards,” she said in the video.
Insider’s Jason Lalljee previously reported that Levy was part of Meta’s year-long diversity program, which helps workers from underrepresented backgrounds work in tech recruiting. Levy was fired after working for the company for about seven months. She told Insider that she was able to talk about her work at the company because she didn’t sign Meta’s termination agreement.
A spokesman for Meta did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would lay off another 10,000 employees after shedding 13% of its workforce late last year. In the past, the CEO has emphasized Meta’s plans to make 2023 the “Year of Efficiency,” which means cutting headcount. In February, Zuckerberg asked some managers to switch or quit in roles with individual contributors, Bloomberg reported.
As a member of the Sourcer Development Program, Levy said she was able to speak to workers across the company and found that several employees felt frustrated at the lack of work they could do at Meta, while other people became increasingly protective of their jobs over news of upcoming cuts spread.
“A lot of people felt like they were being made into people who were being fired,” Levy said. “People who were incredibly well qualified and had turned down amazing opportunities said they felt Meta was deliberately holding back her career. I mean, they told people not to work on things, but at the same time there was a lot of work that needed to be done.”
Levy said she faced several obstacles in her job, including struggling to get permission from supervisors to contact potential job applicants. She said that instead of sitting around, she took the opportunity to learn about company policies and share their experiences at the company with other workers.
“I could have taken a day off and no one would have known,” Levy said. “I think there were probably people who just checked in and then did nothing.”
While getting paid for little to no work might sound like a dream job to some, Levy said she feels there are very few people at Meta who are happy in this situation.
“That kind of experience isn’t getting me anywhere,” she said. “I don’t have any metrics to put on my resume. All I can say right now is that it was an educational opportunity.”
On Monday, billionaire tech CEO Thomas Siebel said he believes companies like Meta and Google have hired so much that they don’t have enough work for employees. He is one of several technical executives who have expressed concern that employees are not working enough. Earlier this month, Keith Rabois, a member of the so-called PayPal mafia, said that Google and Meta have hired thousands of employees to do “sham work” — a view that has gained traction among several Silicon Valley investors and founders.
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