These labor outsourcing employees are all working for Facebook projects, which mainly involve marking the content on Facebook and Instagram whether there are copyright and intellectual property issues, whether it involves business integrity and security issues and other content review work. Several projects are “downsizing”, two of the people said.
About 600 Accenture employees work on Facebook projects, and about 400 are expected to lose their jobs by the end of the year, according to a person familiar with the matter. More than 65 people have lost their jobs and another 145 are expected to be told of their jobs next week, the people said.
“They deny it’s a layoff, but that’s what it is,” one employee said. He explained that Accenture’s claim that employees working on Facebook projects were “swapped” or “eliminated” was entirely to avoid using the word “unemployed.” Facebook reportedly signed a labor outsourcing contract with Accenture worth $500 million a year.
Prepare for mass layoffs
Over the past few months, Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives have talked about slowing revenue growth, asking employees to adjust to the new situation, promoting “harder work,” tougher performance reviews, and The benefits of reduced operational resources. This has led to large-scale layoffs for Facebook’s high-paid full-time employees.
Accenture did not tell employees the exact reason for their job losses. Facebook is moving related operations from Accenture to another labor outsourcing firm based in Singapore, which has lower labor costs, people familiar with the matter said. Facebook has a major contract with Singapore-based labor outsourcing firm TDCX, which counts Facebook and Airbnb as its biggest customers. In addition, Facebook has partnerships with labor outsourcing companies such as VXI Global Solutions and Rose International.
An Accenture spokesman said “the layoffs are inaccurate” and that “we do not use algorithms to randomly select layoffs.” A Facebook representative also declined to comment.
Algorithm randomly selected
In a video conference this month, an Accenture human resources representative explained that “an algorithm” would help decide which projects would be “downscaled,” in what attendees described as “reading from script.” An Accenture human resources representative also said that employees not affected by the layoffs can now work from home. During the epidemic, Facebook’s labor outsourcing employees were repeatedly asked to work in the office. In April this year, Facebook asked them to return to the office again. One employee revealed that they can now work from home “in the long term”.
In another meeting, 65 Facebook contractors were told they would lose their jobs, which the meeting said was an algorithmic decision. A wave of layoffs followed in July when Accenture employees working for Facebook in Austin suddenly found themselves subject to stricter performance reviews and job scrutiny. Beginning in May of this year, labor outsourcing workers who were only a few minutes late for work or were recorded as not working for three minutes found themselves placed on a performance improvement plan. In the tech industry, being placed on a performance improvement program is a precursor to unemployment. Those who were included in the performance improvement plan were the first to be fired by Accenture, people familiar with the matter said.
“It’s all a foreshadowing,” said a person familiar with the layoff plan.
“There is no room for us”
Employees affected by the layoffs were told they would need to formally reapply for jobs through Accenture if they lost their jobs, and there was “no guarantee” that they would be rehired. While Accenture human resources representatives said during one of the video conferences that they would help unemployed workers find “matches” for new positions, most employees received no help, said people familiar with the matter. Fortunately, until October 3, Accenture will continue to pay those unemployed employees who work on Facebook projects.
There are few jobs available, and Facebook basically has few vacancies, one employee said.
“There’s no room for us there because they’re scaling back everything,” the source added.
There are also a handful of laid-off employees who get another job through Accenture. Even if the pay is lower, they can’t refuse, otherwise they will be considered to be voluntarily resigned and it will be difficult to get unemployment benefits.
“Everything is messed up,” the employee said.