I see this happening more and more in my LinkedIn feed recently from every big to medium international company I can think of. Mostly people who need visas seems to be affected.
I'm have this paranoid supsicion that some powerful shadow (i.e. unkown) actor within the USA political landspace really wants to take Facebook/Meta down.
I suppose they did not go along somebody's political plans? so little trustworthy information sure makes my imagination take off
That's a weird take considering it's a company that's been very publicly and loudly saying it plans to make cuts due to falling revenue. They got hit hard by Apple's privacy changes and some other "macro headwinds."
This is a practice that will be regulated soon for profitable companies. Sure, a company undergoing severe layoffs/bankruptcy will be forgiven for this practice. One of the most profitable companies in the world will not be.
I suspect we'll soon see breakup clauses in job offers for senior hires, or direct regulation requiring the company to pay at least X weeks compensation if they break the offer. This will probably have the side effect of terminating contract to hire practices at companies.
> I suspect we'll soon see breakup clauses in job offers for senior hires, or direct regulation requiring the company to pay at least X weeks compensation if they break the offer.
I don't suspect this at all. What about candidates simply ghosting on join date. That would be regulated too?
Obviously not, because candidates are generally in a worse position than the company they are interviewing to. There's nothing to balance here, regulation must hit corporations and protect employees.
what worse position. Pretty sure the engineers quoted in the article will do just fine. Why does govt need to 'hit corporations' for privileged FB employees making 500k/yr+
That's because Facebook doesn't just employ privileged engineers making big money, but an army of staff that won't do just fine if their employer fucks them over. Neither you, nor me, and certainly no public service officer can draw the line. That's why the government should force businesses to treat all employees with a modicum of respect, and prevent corporations from doing stuff like Facebook did here.
They would have been privileged FB employees. But with the offer cancelled maybe they are not so privileged anymore? They could be new grads that never were on the gravy train.
I'm surprised there was no contract signed before relocation. I'm not sure I would relocate internationally without a signed contract. In fact I never remember quitting a job without a signed contract for a new one,but perhaps I was lucky having to deal with pretty good companies.
The problem here is that the "contract" aka. offer has no penalties for termination. Generally people agree to these terms because they are favorable in other ways such as extra compensation, or simply because they don't perceive the terms as negotiable (probably true).
If companies get a reputation for screwing people, then this will change. I once worked at a firm that would obsess over the fine-print of a contract to make sure that we weren't in breach as they messed with their partner. Needless to say, I didn't work at this firm long - and the firm didn't last long. Contracts are only as good as the trust you have in the other party.
This is obviously extremely disturbing to those who were looking forward to relocate and might have already taken irreversible steps to make it happen, but what would be even worse is if...
- Meta had to reduce head count and would layoff existing staff whilst still bringing in new staff from oversea
- Meta would relocate people only to lay them off shortly after
It's not ideal, but perhaps this highlights how important it is to include a clause in the contract that says if employer changes their mind X weeks before intended relocation then they owe Y amount in reimbursement. If an employer refused to include such a clause then at least one knows that they might not put the money where the mouth is when they make an offer.
Awful, but a lot less awful than canceling the offers after the moves.
I don't think this kind of thing is going to change anytime soon as long as corporate America works the way it does today.
- Budget cuts, layoffs, hiring freezes, etc. are always going to be held closely by the C-level / senior execs. For reasons good and bad ("we don't want to kill morale until we have to," "what if we did X, Y, or Z instead?" "if layoffs leak, the wrong people will start looking for new jobs...") that information isn't distributed until last-minute or you see the effects but don't know why.
- The other folks are busy trying to hire and get people in the door before the door slams shut. They don't know the CFO is going to say "no more hiring, withdraw offers" until it happens.
- Given the size of these organizations someone is always three weeks out from starting a job unless there's already a freeze in place.
If companies weren't obligated to try to make profits at all costs rather than having a longer-term view of the world -- if they didn't have to worry about getting sued for doing the humane thing instead of the profitable one -- then more companies might be willing to honor those offers and eat profits a few quarters in order to do right by their employees.
This was my take. That would be truly awful to move somewhere and be out thousands of dollars just to find you don't have a job. I suspect there is little need at Facebook that needs a human presence, yet these huge companies continue to give in to demands from middle management despite doing just fine not having on premises for 2 years.
I guess the way I'd put it is: "sure, meta can do this and it might save them some money, but the reputational risk will stay with them forever".
I don't even get Meta recruiters. I've talked to quite a few of them now ("Hey, we saw you were a Software Engineer at Google...") and they are spectacularly misleading, or just ghost you if you ask them challenging questions.
What I don’t understand is these are large companies who are well aware of their financial budgets ahead of time. there is just no excuse.
I understand how small business owners may struggle, but if you are meta the least you can do is compensate candidates for the risk and lost income. The law for companies of this size should be three months compensation paired with a three month visa extension.
This way companies will have to plan ahead, and said candidates be able to continue with a different company.
28 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 85.2 ms ] threadmaybe some government issue with visas?
I'm have this paranoid supsicion that some powerful shadow (i.e. unkown) actor within the USA political landspace really wants to take Facebook/Meta down.
I suppose they did not go along somebody's political plans? so little trustworthy information sure makes my imagination take off
1. Today: When Facebook Actually Broke My Brain https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/opinion/facebook-bipolar-...
2. Yesterday: Skepticism, Confusion, Frustration: Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Struggles https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/technology/meta-zuckerber...
3.Day before yesterday: This Is Life in the Metaverse https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/technology/metaverse-face...
Does this obsession seem normal ?
I suspect we'll soon see breakup clauses in job offers for senior hires, or direct regulation requiring the company to pay at least X weeks compensation if they break the offer. This will probably have the side effect of terminating contract to hire practices at companies.
I don't suspect this at all. What about candidates simply ghosting on join date. That would be regulated too?
If companies get a reputation for screwing people, then this will change. I once worked at a firm that would obsess over the fine-print of a contract to make sure that we weren't in breach as they messed with their partner. Needless to say, I didn't work at this firm long - and the firm didn't last long. Contracts are only as good as the trust you have in the other party.
- Meta had to reduce head count and would layoff existing staff whilst still bringing in new staff from oversea
- Meta would relocate people only to lay them off shortly after
It's not ideal, but perhaps this highlights how important it is to include a clause in the contract that says if employer changes their mind X weeks before intended relocation then they owe Y amount in reimbursement. If an employer refused to include such a clause then at least one knows that they might not put the money where the mouth is when they make an offer.
I don't think this kind of thing is going to change anytime soon as long as corporate America works the way it does today.
- Budget cuts, layoffs, hiring freezes, etc. are always going to be held closely by the C-level / senior execs. For reasons good and bad ("we don't want to kill morale until we have to," "what if we did X, Y, or Z instead?" "if layoffs leak, the wrong people will start looking for new jobs...") that information isn't distributed until last-minute or you see the effects but don't know why.
- The other folks are busy trying to hire and get people in the door before the door slams shut. They don't know the CFO is going to say "no more hiring, withdraw offers" until it happens.
- Given the size of these organizations someone is always three weeks out from starting a job unless there's already a freeze in place.
If companies weren't obligated to try to make profits at all costs rather than having a longer-term view of the world -- if they didn't have to worry about getting sued for doing the humane thing instead of the profitable one -- then more companies might be willing to honor those offers and eat profits a few quarters in order to do right by their employees.
I don't even get Meta recruiters. I've talked to quite a few of them now ("Hey, we saw you were a Software Engineer at Google...") and they are spectacularly misleading, or just ghost you if you ask them challenging questions.
I understand how small business owners may struggle, but if you are meta the least you can do is compensate candidates for the risk and lost income. The law for companies of this size should be three months compensation paired with a three month visa extension.
This way companies will have to plan ahead, and said candidates be able to continue with a different company.