Ex-employee claims Meta dominated by Chinese workers, 6 of 7 laid off staff were non-Chinese

A former Meta engineer, Jeremy Bernier, has accused the company of favoring Chinese workers in layoffs and workplace culture. Bernier claims that 90% of his coworkers in US-based teams were Chinese, yet 6 out of 7 layoffs he observed targeted non-Chinese employees. The layoffs, part of Meta’s May 20 announcement to cut around 8,000 jobs, have sparked controversy, with Bernier describing a workplace environment where non-Chinese employees were routinely excluded. Bernier detailed how Mandarin became the default language in team settings, even after English meetings ended. He wrote that Chinese colleagues would switch to Mandarin immediately after formal discussions, leaving non-Chinese workers out of conversations. He compared the situation to a hypothetical where a Chinese company like Huawei was dominated by Japanese workers, suggesting such exclusion would be unacceptable in China. Exclusion extended to social interactions, Bernier said. During team lunches and dinners, Chinese coworkers often excluded non-Chinese employees, including himself. At one team dinner, two tech leads sat separately from Bernier and another non-Chinese colleague before joining them but continued speaking Chinese exclusively. Bernier questioned how Meta could tolerate such blatant exclusion from leadership roles. Bernier emphasized he had no issue with Chinese people but criticized Meta’s failure to address the imbalance. Online reactions to his claims were mixed, with some defending the Chinese workers’ language use as a cultural norm, while others dismissed his complaints as unfounded. The controversy highlights broader concerns about workplace diversity and inclusion in tech companies, particularly during mass layoffs.