Meta employees are losing another perk.
The company, previously called Facebook, recently did away with a benefit that gave workers up to $200 a month for Lyft rides to and from any work office, two employees told Insider. The benefit was for Lyft specifically, and worked essentially like a coupon for the ridesharing service.
"We have adjusted some of our transportation offerings," a spokesperson for Facebook said. While employees can still be reimbursed for some office transportation costs, it is now more dependent on location, the spokesperson added. After a Lyft spokesperson contacted Insider, Facebook amended its comment to say the benefit was just for the Seattle area, "which is the 2nd largest engineering hub outside of our Menlo Park HQ."
The company is in the midst of a restructuring and cost-cutting effort, looking to reduce total expenditures this year by $1 billion, according to an outlook shared in its third-quarter earnings forecast. "We are making significant changes across the board to operate more efficiently," CFO David Wehner said.
Facebook laid off 11,000 workers last month, reducing its workforce to 76,000 from just over 87,000. And while other tech companies like Twitter and Apple are demanding workers return to offices, Facebook still supports remote work. The company has plans to shrink its office footprint, so much so that it's moving to a desk sharing model.
Meta had between 5,000 to 7,000 employees in Seattle when it ended the program earlier this year. If every employee used the full $200 benefit each month, that would amount to between about $12 million and $17 million in annual Lyft bookings. The ridesharing company collects a percentage of those bookings as fees from drivers and reports that as revenue. Lyft is already struggling with fewer riders than it had before the pandemic. Its stock is down 74% this year, roughly double that of rival Uber.
A Lyft spokesperson said Meta ended its commuter program for employees of the company's Menlo Park headquarters in 2019 and for employees in Seattle in March 2022, and that the company is not losing revenue as result of those decisions now.
Facebook employees have already lost certain other perks, such as on-site laundry at headquarters. The time of a daily free dinner provided to workers has also been moved to after a company-provided shuttle takes workers home for the day, saving Facebook money on food costs by preventing those employees taking food home for dinner, previously a common practice.
Such perks may seem outlandish to a typical employee, but Big Tech has for years been trying to lure and keep engineers and other skilled workers in a competitive job market. As layoffs sweep through the industry, companies like Facebook are less eager to pamper staff.
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