Meta Axes Staff for Abusing Food Perks Amid Wider Layoffs

Meta has reportedly fired around two dozen staffers for misusing their meal credits.

The firing, as reported Wednesday (Oct. 16) by the Financial Times (FT), comes amid a wider series of layoffs at Meta.

According to the report, the staff members — based in Los Angeles — had been using $25 meal credits to purchase various household items.

The FT notes that Meta — like most Big Tech firms — offers free food to employees as a perk, with workers in offices without a cafeteria getting credits for meal delivery services like Grubhub or UberEats. PYMNTS has contacted Meta for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

The trillion dollar company gives daily allowances of $20 for breakfast and $25 for lunch, $25 for dinner. The fired employees, one source told the FT, had been abusing this system for a long time, pooling their money together, or getting meals sent home even though the credits were meant to be used at the office.

According to the report, the firings happened last week, just before Meta began restructuring teams at WhatsApp, Instagram and its augmented/virtual reality unit Reality Labs.

Sources told the FT that this move has included cutting some workers and relocating others, a signal that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s efficiency campaign is ongoing.

Meta has cut thousands of jobs over the last two years, starting with an 11,000-position cut in November 2022, followed by another 10,000 layoffs last March. The company said at the time it was freezing hiring for another 5,000 open positions.

And this year, the company embarked on a plan to reduce the number of vice president roles from the 300 it had last year to around 250.

In other Meta news, the company recently rolled out its Orion augmented reality (AR) glasses, leaving PYMNTS to wonder about the future of AR commerce.

The PYMNTS Intelligence study, “The Online Features Driving Consumers to Shop With Brands, Retailers or Marketplaces,” found that people are searching for an interactive, customized commerce experience, with 40% of consumers weighing how easy to navigate a merchant’s online store is when deciding where to make purchases.

“As AR glasses become more integrated into everyday commerce, they will necessitate the development of innovative payment solutions that can meet the demands of this new medium,” that report said.

“Traditional payment methods, such as swiping a card or even tapping a phone, may feel cumbersome in an AR-driven environment where immediacy and convenience are paramount.”