‘It’s Undignified’: Hundreds of Workers Training Meta’s AI Could Be Laid Off
Over 700 workers in Ireland employed by Covalen, a contractor for Meta, face potential layoffs as the company implements significant job cuts. The layoffs are part of Meta's strategy to enhance efficiency and increase investment in AI technology. Affected employees have expressed concerns about the undignified nature of the layoffs and the impact of AI on their jobs.
- ▪More than 700 workers at Covalen, a Meta contractor, are at risk of layoffs.
- ▪The layoffs are part of Meta's plan to cut one in 10 jobs to improve efficiency.
- ▪Covalen employees have been told the layoffs result from reduced demand and operational requirements.
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| Original publisher | WIRED |
| Canonical URL | https://www.wired.com/story/meta-covalen-ai-workers-layoffs/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 28 Apr 2026 18:36:47 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-04-28T18:46:49.549Z |
| Last seen | 2026-04-28T18:46:49.549Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 5KU6sE94TclL |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Joel KhaliliBusinessApr 28, 2026 2:36 PM‘It’s Undignified’: Hundreds of Workers Training Meta’s AI Could Be Laid OffMore than 700 people working for a Meta contractor in Ireland are at risk of losing their jobs, documents show.Photograph: David Paul Morris/Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyHundreds of workers in Ireland tasked with refining Meta’s AI models have been told that their jobs are at risk as the company embarks on a sweeping new round of layoffs, according to documents obtained by WIRED.The affected workers are employed by the Dublin-based firm Covalen, which handles various content moderation and labeling services for Meta.The workers were informed of the layoffs over a brief video meeting on Monday afternoon and were not…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at WIRED.
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