Due to gender bias, the layoffs are beyond humane, especially for women employees.

Meta layoff let go of thousands of staff last week. Many Indian women employees have been affected by the huge Meta layoffs and are included among these thousands of workers. Last week, Twitter also let go of thousands of workers.

Many affected Indian men and women employees have expressed their distress on social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. While some feel there has been some gender bias as well. These affected Indians are on H1B visas and must find employment within 60 days of the termination date. Any H1B visa holder who cannot find employment within 60 days will have to return to their place of origin. In this instance, Indians who are jobless beyond the grace period must come back home. 

One of the women employees directly impacted by the massive Meta layoffs is Anneka Patel. When she learned about it, she was on maternity leave. Feels that there has been some gender bias in the sacking of people.

What has changed since the epidemic of female workers? Although the turbulent year of 2020 is over, the coronavirus pandemic and the severe financial uncertainty that many women employees and their families are experiencing continue.

Women at work have lost more jobs than men in the first 10 months of the pandemic because industries dominated by women have been the hardest hit. During the recession, women have lost a net of 5.4 million jobs, which is approximately 1 million more than males.

As long-standing gender biases and disparities contribute to the segregation of women into low-paying occupations and the ongoing gender wage gap, women’s work has historically also been underestimated. The median annual salary for women at work year-round, full-time jobs in 2019 was $47,299, or 82 percent of men’s salaries. 

Due to the persistence of intersecting ethnic, race, and gender biases, most women of color particularly Black, Hispanic, and Native American women experience a wider gender wage gap. Additionally, these groups are disproportionately represented in the low-paying but frequently necessary service and care sector jobs.

Women employees earn less than males do in part because they are mostly responsible for taking care of their families. Women are more frequently burdened with a variety of domestic tasks, such as taking care of children at home, managing household needs, scheduling appointments and activities, and more, which comes at a financial cost. 

Many working women lack access to supportive work-family policies that would allow them to fully participate in the labor force while managing their caregiving responsibilities, including the 64.2 percent of mothers who were the primary or co-breadwinners for their families in 2017.

In 2019, a large number of women employees worked part-time: 17.3 million in total, which is almost twice as many as males. In addition, 84 percent of these women had non-work-related obligations, like caring for their families. Due to a dearth of legislation in the United States that supports both employment and caregiving, as well as because of persistent presumptions and frequently racist and sexist stereotypes that devalue women’s responsibilities and demand that they juggle it all, women are left in a hazardous situation.

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Management, female CEOs appear to be fired far more frequently than male CEOs in top management. Overall, they discovered those female CEOs were around 45% more likely than male CEOs to be fired. The fact that performance enhancements for males had a protective impact but not for women is also telling how gender bias happens is affecting women at work.