‘It’s Undignified’: Hundreds of Workers Training Meta’s AI Could Be Laid Off

Hundreds 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 allowed to ask questions, according to Nick Bennett, one of the employees on the call. “We had a pretty bad feeling [before the meeting],” he says. “This has happened before.”

In all, more than 700 employees stand to potentially lose their jobs at Covalen, according to an email reviewed by WIRED. Roughly 500 are data annotators. Their job is to check material generated by Meta’s AI models against the company’s rules barring dangerous and illegal content. “It’s essentially training the AI to take over our jobs,” claims another Covalen employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We take actions as the perfect decision for the AI to emulate.”

Sometimes, the work involves cooking up elaborate prompts to try to bypass guardrails meant to prevent models from serving up child sexual abuse material, say, or descriptions of suicide. “It’s quite a grueling job,” claims Bennett. “You spend your whole day pretending to be a pedophile.”

Last week, Meta announced plans to cut one in 10 jobs as part of sweeping layoffs aimed at making the company more efficient. A memo circulated by the company reportedly indicated that layoffs were motivated by a need to increase spending on other aspects of the business. Though the memo did not mention AI, the company recently announced plans to nearly double its spending on the technology. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “I think that 2026 is going to be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.” In the email reviewed by WIRED, Covalen employees were told only that the layoffs were a result of “reduced demand and operational requirements.”

In a statement, Meta spokesperson Erica Sackin said: “As we shared in March, over the next few years, Meta will be deploying more advanced AI systems to transform our approach to content enforcement and operations across our platforms, so that it delivers the safety and protection people expect. As we do that, we’ll be reducing our reliance on third-party vendors and strengthening our internal systems.”

The latest round of layoffs marks the second time that Covalen has cut staff in recent months. In November, the company announced plans for job cuts (reportedly to number around 400), culminating in a worker strike. Between the two rounds of layoffs, Covalen’s headcount in Dublin is on track to be almost halved, according to the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), whose members include some Covalen staff.

For affected Covalen workers, the search for new work will be hampered by a six-month “cooldown period,” during which they are unable to apply to a competing Meta vendor, claims the CWU. “It’s undignified, you know,” says the Covalen employee who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s rude.”

Covalen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Unions representing the affected employees are pushing for Covalen to enter negotiations over severance terms. They also hope to meet with the Irish government to discuss how AI is impacting workers in the country. “Tech companies are treating the workers whose labor and data helped build AI as disposable,” says Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union. “To fight back, it’s absolutely critical that workers organize and demand notice about the introduction of AI, training linked to employment, and a plan for their futures. Workers should also have the right to refuse to train their AI replacements.”

But some of those caught up in the layoffs are doubtful of their chances of securing stable employment in a labor market being rehewn in real time by AI and the deep-pocketed companies leading its development. “It’s a universal battle between downtrodden white-collar workers and big capital, really,” claims Bennett. “That normally only goes one way.”