Meta layoffs: 26 employees sued, saying AI tools helped pick workers on medical and parental leave for job cuts, and Meta says people decided

Meta was sued by 26 employees who say AI tools helped select workers on medical and parental leave for its 8,000 layoffs; Meta says people, not AI, decided. The suit was filed in federal court in Oakland, California, in July 2026, the Associated Press reported, carried by CBS News on 15 July. It claims Meta "used internal AI systems, keystroke and activity-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards and algorithmically assisted performance rankings" to decide who would go in the job cuts, which Meta had announced as about 8,000 people, roughly 10% of its workforce, starting in May. All 26 had taken protected leave or a disability accommodation: according to the AP, eight women took maternity leave, four men took parental leave and one woman took family care and bereavement leave, and others took medical leave for disabilities. Their argument is that scores built from activity and AI usage cannot be earned by someone who is on leave. Their lawyers asked the court to keep the workers employed pending arbitration. Meta said the claims "lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI." On 17 July, Reuters reported, US District Judge William Orrick refused to block the layoffs, finding no irreparable harm shown, while saying he could revisit that on further evidence about whether and how AI was used; Meta's employment agreements send such disputes to individual arbitration. The question in this case is AI choosing who is cut, not AI doing the work of the people who left, so it is not counted in the AI layoffs tracker on this site. California's SB 947, signed on 30 September, will from July 2027 bar employers there from relying on an automated system alone to fire someone.