Indian-origin employees within Meta have complained that non-Chinese staff are frequently excluded!
On May 20, Meta launched a new round of global layoffs, cutting 8,000 jobs. The company simultaneously initiated workforce restructuring, relocating approximately 7,000 employees to multiple new AI departments.
Three days later, a laid-off Indian engineer posted on X, shifting the entire narrative. Engineer jeremybernier wrote: “At Meta, 90% of my colleagues are Chinese. Non-Chinese staff are often marginalized, placed at a disadvantage, and even targeted for layoffs. In the seven layoff instances I’ve personally witnessed, six targeted non-Chinese employees.”
jeremybernier described his daily experience: the most obvious form of exclusion for non-Chinese staff is that Chinese colleagues primarily speak Mandarin during work. “I’m not talking about occasional conversations—this happens every single time. They speak loudly, completely indifferent to others.” He recalled a situation where ten or so people, including their leaders, gathered and spoke only in Chinese, leaving two non-Chinese staff members unable to understand, feeling completely ignored by the team.
Although English is used during official meetings, as soon as the meeting ends, everyone instantly switches back to Chinese. The same pattern occurs during meals—once, he and another non-Chinese colleague were directly left out when the rest of the team went out for dinner together. He also mentioned a team dinner at a Korean barbecue restaurant, where several senior employees deliberately kept their distance from him and another non-Chinese colleague.
jeremybernier repeatedly emphasized that he isn’t targeting the Chinese community. He said he has many Chinese friends and that many former colleagues are kind and generous. He simply feels that everyone in the team except himself is Chinese, and since he doesn’t understand Mandarin at all, he feels like an outsider. priiir said that the entire team—including management—communicates exclusively in Chinese, with critical work discussions and decisions quietly taking place in WeChat group chats, making him feel entirely excluded.
Similar complaints are not isolated incidents. On Reddit, another angry post appeared, explicitly listing four “sins” committed by Chinese employees: speaking English in meetings, immediately switching to Chinese afterward; never inviting non-Chinese people to lunch; some having very low English proficiency and being hard to understand; and lacking personal boundaries. The poster said his advertising team was 80% Chinese, and someone who doesn’t understand Mandarin felt like he was living in hell there.
I’m somewhat puzzled—can Chinese colleagues simply speaking Chinese among themselves really make Indian-origin employees feel so excluded?
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1866120201729024/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author