Ghost Employees: Former Meta And Salesforce Employees Claim They Were Hired To Do Nothing

Big Tech Employees Paid Thousands of Dollars To Do Nothing

In recent weeks, there have been several expose stories from former tech employees that have racked up millions of views. These videos have been posted on social media platforms such as TikTok with some stories ending up on Twitter. A common in these videos, all these employees claim they collected monthly paychecks from large tech companies without doing much.

One of these cases that has caught the attention of the public is the case of Madelyn Machado. In a TikTok video that went viral, Machado documented her experience as a former Meta employee. In the video, Ms. Machado disclosed that she held a position as a recruiter for Meta from September 2021 until late last year.

She added that she was paid a whopping $190,000 a year but she spent much of her time in meetings that did not accomplish anything. She also stated that she was not expected to hire anyone in her first year since she was “learning the ropes.” As the Wall Street Journal reports, Meta declined to comment on this story.

Another Meta worker who joined the team in April 2022 also came forward via a TikTok video. In the video, they said, “They were just kind of, like, hoarding us like Pokémon cards.” The Wall Street Journal also tells the tale of Britney Levy who claims she was hired as part of a year-long training program designed to recruit diverse talent.

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However, she would find herself out of a job by November 2022 after receiving only one task during her tenure. She went on to say, “I was like, am I being set up for failure?”

Another employee, Derrick McMillen, formerly of Facebook and Salesforce also provided some insight on the issue. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Derrick claimed that he often felt as though 80% of the work at Salesforce was done by 20% of the employees. According to the Wall Street Journal, Salesforce refused to comment on these allegations.

So, Why Do These Ghost Employees Exist?

These revelations from these employees have received a public outcry and criticism. However, as professionals say, this is not surprising at all and it happens a lot!

During the pandemic, companies more so in the tech industry boomed and were flush with cash. To this end, the companies snapped up and recruited available professionals to build a deep bench and hoard talent from competitors. They did this despite not being able to engage and fully utilize these recruited workers.

Vijay Govindarajan, professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business told the Wall Street Journal that, “they were hiring ahead of demand.” Vijay also mentions that during the financial industry boom of the 2000s, companies in the sector overhired too and employees were left without enough or with nothing to do.

Layoffs.fyi reports that in 2023 alone, there have been 168,243 layoffs in the industry. These surplus employees make a bulk of these layoffs as companies look to improve their financial situation. Meta Chief among other tech executives has issued mea culpas (official apologies) for over-hiring and the mistaken belief that shifts in the industry caused by the pandemic would be long-lasting or permanent.

Another reason cited for over-hiring in large tech companies is that hiring is viewed as more of a vanity metric. This implies that a company will hire more than the necessary number of employees just to keep them from working for other companies.