Twitter has a department called ‘META,’ which stands for ML ethics, Transparency and Accountability. The director of the department, Rumman Choudhary, was shocked when she found her official Gmail account was blocked one day. The password was changed an hour before she attempted her login; Choudhary was being fired from Twitter along with 7,500 of her colleagues. 

And if this number looks huge, social media giant Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees yesterday. The laid-off employees are around 12.5% of the total staff of Meta (around 87,300 as of September 2022). But then, why is Meta’s firing not as devastating for their employees when compared to what Twitter ex-employees expressed? And how is Meta’s disaster management better than Twitter’s?

What happened with Meta?

“We expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size or even a slightly smaller organisation than we are today,” Meta CEO had said in the company’s third-quarter earnings call in October this year. 

The social networking juggernaut Meta’s stock is trading at a seven-year low of $90, cascading roughly 80% from its 2021 high of $384 and 73.7% for the year as a whole. News outlets claim that investment firm Altimeter Capital encouraged Meta to reduce staff and scale back its plans for the metaverse. The IT company took action and fired more than 11,000 workers yesterday. Analytics India Magazine reached out to Meta Communications, India, to learn more about these issues, but they declined to comment.

Is Meta dealing better than Twitter?

Layoffs, no matter who does it, are never good news for employees. But again, how a company responds to it makes or breaks the lives of its staff. When Twitter laid off 50% of its employees, they got an email that read: “It is with regret that we write to inform you that your role at Twitter has been identified as potentially impacted or at risk of redundancy.” 

Addressing the severance payment, Elon Musk claimed that they are paying three-months severance to their employees. However, it was quickly found that Twitter is paying only two months of severance to its Indian employees and not a penny to Twitter Africa employees. Yes, Twitter laid off nearly the entire Twitter Africa staff and did not pay a single dollar in the name of severance!

“If my laptop is working, then I’m not fired. But if my laptop stops working, then I’m fired,” a Twitter employee shared the experience of massive layoffs and how it is being executed. 

Compared to Twitter, Meta has been more transparent about their process. Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to employees listing out benefits that US citizens would receive, including four months of a severance package along with two additional weeks for every year of service. 

Additionally, Meta has committed to paying for its laid-off workers’ health insurance for the following six months. The tech giant is also offering three months of career help through a third-party vendor that would include early access to unreleased employment leads.

60 Days—the clock is ticking! 

Majority of the employees working in the tech sector in the USA come with an H1B Visa. Once laid off, the US government requires immigrants to find a job within 60 days or risk deportation. 

Meta has extended its support regarding the issue by providing immigration specialists to guide the laid off employees. Zukerberg said, “I know this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa. There’s a notice period before termination and some visa grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make plans and work through their immigration status. We have dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based on what you and your family need.”

Twitter, on other hand, has not provided any such support to its employees (at least not one that is public knowledge). Several users are sharing their problems with the Linkedin community. For instance, Ruchita Pereira, former software engineer at Twitter, shared on Linkedin that she has a limited time at hand to find another opportunity.

Another post was shared by Sushmitha S Nataraj expressed similar sentiments about the situation regarding the validity of her H1B visa.

So yes, Twitter employees are left to fend for themselves while Meta is looking after its laid off employees (at least it has promised to). The real question, however, is whether winter is closer than ever for techies.