Tech corporation Meta has reportedly dismissed approximately two dozen employees based in Los Angeles due to the misuse of the company’s $25 meal vouchers to purchase non-food household items. According to a report by the Financial Times, these dismissals occurred after the company discovered that the employees were exploiting its food credit system to buy household goods such as acne pads, wine glasses, and laundry detergent.
The report highlights that Meta employees receive daily allowances of $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and an additional $25 for dinner. These benefits are in line with what other large tech companies offer in addition to regular compensation packages. Some staff members had allegedly been misusing the system over an extended period. This misuse included pooling funds or having meals delivered to their homes, contrary to the company’s intention for the credits to be used at the office. Those who occasionally violated these food voucher rules received a reprimand but were not immediately terminated.
The Financial Times reviewed a post from the anonymous messaging platform Blind, where a former Meta employee with a reported salary of about $400,000 confessed to using the $25 meal credits at places like Rite Aid to purchase items such as toothpaste and tea. This individual admitted to the misuse when Meta’s human resources started investigating the actions and was subsequently terminated, describing the experience as “surreal.”
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has been undergoing restructuring over recent years. As reported by the Financial Times, the company is currently executing another round of layoffs and adjustments to several teams. Previously, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in November 2022 that the company would be reducing its workforce by over 11,000 employees, followed by another reduction affecting 10,000 workers in the spring of 2023, part of what he termed the “Year of Efficiency.”
Zuckerberg has stated earlier this year that the layoffs were not due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) but rather because Meta, like other tech firms, invested heavily during the COVID era e-commerce boom, resulting in overexpansion. On the “Morning Brew Daily” podcast, he mentioned that many companies, including Meta, found themselves financially strained due to overbuilding during this period.