Raphael Thys
Facebook's business growth has slowed as of late.
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- Accenture told Facebook contractors this week that they are being removed from work for the company.
- The company only offered the option to formally apply for jobs on other Accenture projects.
- A contractor earlier told Insider about the "messy" run up to being recently let go.
Accenture told an estimated 60 contract employees for Facebook working out of its Austin office that they would soon take away their work, Insider has learned.
These contractors work with Facebook through Accenture, which has a $500 million-a-year deal with the company to provide hourly workers for services like content moderation and business-integrity services. They learned they were being "moved off" of their Facebook work in a Tuesday video meeting that Accenture representatives held, a person with knowledge of the call told Insider. Accenture did not immediately offer the affected contractors other jobs or "direct transfers" within the company, according to worker messages viewed by Insider.
Accenture gave these contractors the option to "reapply" for available work at the company if they wished, as their current work is set to disappear on Sept. 2. Workers said in the messages they were told the process would include new rounds of interviews and "no guarantee" that Accenture would rehire anyone whom the loss of Facebook work affected.
In a follow-up call on Wednesday, Accenture representatives told workers that human resources would attempt to place people with certain skills on other projects if they applied for them. Otherwise, for those workers that are not rehired or choose not to reapply, they will be paid through Oct. 3.
"I want a new job but I don't want to be forced into one," a worker said in a message discussing the meetings.
Accenture scheduled both calls with little notice and no communication of what they would discuss, workers said. Once on the video calls, the company hid the names of everyone present, including the Accenture representatives speaking. The representatives did not introduce themselves, workers said, leaving them unclear on who was speaking to them.
"I'm assuming it was HR, but no one knows for sure," the person said. The representatives did not give a specific reason for why Accenture was cutting some employees' work at Facebook. When a worker asked how people were chosen, the Accenture representatives said "an algorithm" helped choose people at random, according to workers.
A representative of Facebook, which rebranded to Meta last year, declined to comment. Richard Keil, a spokesperson for Accenture, declined to comment prior to publication beyond a previous statement from the company saying, "It would be inaccurate to report there are layoff actions in Austin." The term "layoff" can have a specific legal definition of employees losing work because of cost-reduction efforts by their employers. After publication, Keil insisted that Accenture representatives speaking to workers on the calls were "introduced," saying workers may have "missed that." As for the purported use of algorithm, Keil said "we don't use algorithms to randomly select people."
Other Facebook contractors lost work last month
The reduction in Facebook contractors comes as the company indeed looks to rein in costs amid slowing growth and revenue. Facebook imposed a hiring freeze, Insider first reported in May. Full-time Facebook employees fear cuts as high as 10% of the company may be coming, Insider previously reported. Several executives at the company, including Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, have recently commented and sent memos to staff promoting a new company culture of "increased intensity," stricter performance evaluations, and the benefits of fewer resources.
Other Facebook contractors lost work last month, Insider previously reported. A former worker said there was a "messy" lead up to their loss of work, again without severance. The work culture inside Facebook's Austin office began to change over the past several months after the hiring freeze, the former worker said. Accenture started to track contractor "productivity" more intensely, and monitored and logged their employees' already-limited breaks, the former worker said, while taking away perks covered by Facebook.
The company further scrutinized anyone who did not properly log time away from their desks or those who started work even a few minutes late, the former worker added. Accenture put these workers on what's known as a "performance-development plan." Across the industry, this is commonly known as a "performance-improvement plan," and employees widely see it as a precursor to their company letting them go. Employees that Accenture put on a performance-development plan lost their work first, the former worker said.
Are you a Facebook employee or contractor or do you have insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging app Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device.
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