Recent AI firings have raised concerns that not only is AI starting to reduce human contributions, but might be contributing to unlawful terminations due to supposed bias. As the jobs market faces conflict between human and AI, it has become complicated in how to balance human and AI in the workers. As shown in the recent Meta lawsuit, it doesn’t always work out.
The Revolution in AI has been tremendous in regard to getting processes done. But it appears that not everyone is enjoying it. As AI becomes more integrated, jobs that would go to certain level workers begin to fade away as their companies begin to convert or supplement their jobs with AI. According to BCG, “Over the next two to three years, 50% to 55% of jobs in the US will be reshaped by AI. For many employees, this will mean that they retain the same or a similar role but face radically new expectations for how they work and what they produce. For company leaders, it will require a clear vision for how the transformation is managed, including a scaled, strategic approach to upskilling and reskilling and the restructuring of career ladders.” (1)But at the same time, it also means that the entry-level jobs that most people need to enter the workforce. This could create a job market that is much smaller than expected in the next 10 years.
Entry level jobs aren’t the only ones facing issues. Higher-level jobs face an uncertain future. In one case, a company installed a third-party software to examine their cybersecurity needs. This in effect made a senior analyst position redundant. But the way they laid them off became a point of contention as they used an unrelated case to let him go. Those in the know knew that was not the reason and there was no reason to let them go other than the fact their job was terminated solely because of AI. They are now in litigation over potential wrongful termination from the EEOC.
Now comes reports that companies like Meta are facing lawsuits over this issue. On July 14th, Meta reported that 26 former employees were suing the company over wrongful termination during Metas recent layoffs in May. In the suit, he lawsuit filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims the company used internal AI systems, keystroke and activity-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards and algorithmically assisted performance rankings, among other methods, to determine who would be laid off.
Many of these scores and ratings “by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability,” the lawsuit says. Meta, according to the lawsuit, did not account for protected leave when taking employees’ scores into account and “did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires. As a result, people on protected medical or family leave were disproportionately selected for layoffs, the lawsuit says. Each of the 26 anonymous employees in the lawsuit took protected leave, or requested or received a reasonable accommodation for disability. (2)
In a survey conducted by Careerminds in February, “Two in three employers that cut jobs due to artificial intelligence are already rehiring laid-off workers, often within months of the original layoffs, as many companies confront the unexpected limits of automation in replacing human roles, according to a new study by Careerminds, which surveyed 600 HR professionals in February 2026 who carried out layoffs in the past year.
Nowhere is this more apparent recently than Fords announcement of bringing back 350 engineers they laid off due to AI. The layoffs were seen as a way to reduce costs and hope to be able streamline the production process. To their detriment, AI could not see the nuances that veteran engineers could see and as a result, multiple mistakes and recalls have occurred.
"Mistakenly, we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that would produce a high-quality product," said Charles Poon, vice president of vehicle hardware engineering. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers who have been with us through many product cycles."(3)
With AI increasingly becoming part of the workforce, its also becoming part of the hiring and termination processes. Like with anything related to these job hirings they have to be done correctly and with Metas lawsuit its revealed that they don’t always work out the way it wants. Companies need to invest in ways to make AI hiring more ethical and control what it actually uses in their hiring practices
