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WASHINGTON — Facebook on Tuesday agreed to pay up to $14.25 million to settle federal government allegations that the company discriminated against American workers in the final days of the Trump administration.
NS The Justice Department sued the company in Decemberarguing that Facebook refuses to “hire, evaluate, or recruit” qualified Americans for thousands of positions. Instead, prosecutors said the company awarded these jobs to foreign workers with work visas.
According to a press release, the deal with the Department of Justice included paying the government $4.75 million and $9.5 million to “appropriate victims of Facebook’s alleged discrimination.” The company also separately resolved concerns over whether it had violated labor regulations by the Labor Department this year.
The allegations were part of the Trump administration’s effort to force the nation’s biggest tech companies to hire more American workers. Management has tightened the requirements for obtaining H1-B visas, popular with tech companies hiring foreigners, and increased the salaries companies must pay workers under the program.
The government investigated Facebook for two years, investigating whether the company deliberately favored the H1-B visa and other temporary migrant workers over US workers. Prosecutors ultimately claimed that the company failed to complete more than 2,600 jobs with an average salary of $166,000 available to foreign workers as well as Americans.
“Facebook is not above the law and must comply with our nation’s federal civil rights laws, which prohibit discriminatory hiring and hiring practices,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the Justice Department.
A Facebook spokesperson, Andy Stone, said he believes the company meets government standards, but the settlements allow the company to move forward.
“These decisions will allow us to focus on recruiting top builders from both the US and around the world and supporting our internal community of highly skilled visa holders seeking permanent residency,” he said.
The monetary value of the deal is insignificant to Facebook. It paid nearly $5 billion in fines in 2019 to settle a Federal Trade Commission case of misuse of consumer data. In the second quarter of 2021, it generated $29 billion in revenue.
But the company’s deals with the federal government on Tuesday show how the social media giant is fighting Washington regulators on multiple fronts.
Last year, the FTC filed a lawsuit arguing that the company broke antitrust laws when it bought WhatsApp and Instagram, two services the government believes could have made formidable rivals to Facebook had they not been acquired. Lawmakers have called for more rules to protect children who use Facebook products in recent weeks, after a former employee of the company claimed she knew her product was harming teens.
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
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