My friends, get into this wild story.
Facebook, or rather Meta, recently fired a bunch of employees using an algorithm to determine who was gonna get the axe- utilizing an approach to employee relations that made even former American President Donald Trump's hilarious quips on The Apprentice pale in comparison.
According to reports, Meta's mass layoffs were initiated by an algorithm randomly selecting 60 contractual staff to be brought to the chopping block. Now, I don't know about you guys, but this is seriously the first time that I've ever heard of getting fired by lottery, though I fear that it won't be the last. Big tech for you, right?
And get this, the contractors, who were employed at Accenture's Austin, Texas headquarters, were notified of their termination by video call, and though they were told they could reapply for any newly available position, they weren't given a clear reason as to why they were being sent home in the first place. Like, what did I do, right?
But I guess in the world of tech, moves like these are just business as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warned that tough performance reviews will lead to the pink slip for some employees as the company prepares for an economic slump since, “Realistically, there are certainly a number of employees who shouldn’t be here.”
A Daily Mail article further quotes Zuckerberg as saying, "Part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might decide that this place isn't for you, and that self-selection is OK with me." In other words, if I can be allowed to paraphrase here for a bit- "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya." Whew!
On another note though, if any good news can be gleaned from this story, the staff to be sent home will be paid for an extra month after their employment ceases on September 2nd. So there's that.
It should be noted though that Meta is not the only Big Tech company engaging in downsizing. Recently, Apple also let 100 contract-based recruiters go.
Meanwhile, as far as firing by algorithm goes, while I admit that this is the first time I've heard of it, apparently this method has been around for about at least a year, with payment processing company for the gaming industry, Xsolla, attempting the same thing- laying off 150 individuals by algorithm in August 2021. Let's hope this is not gonna become an August thing, right?
Anyways, friends, what do you think about this story and the implications for the world of work in the future? Would you see that this process is more objective and efficient or would you say it's coldhearted and impersonal or would you land somewhere in the middle? I'd love to hear your views on this.
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