Snap settled with female employees who alleged discrimination after layoffs: Report

Gender equality in the workplace has continued to be the subject of contention over the past few years. Although leading companies made attempts to tackle the gender wage gap, the progress has been painfully slow.

Google recently disclosing its **internal pay audit report** found that men are being paid less than women for the same role. And in the latest turn of events, Snap now is said to have reached a settlement with three female employees who accused the company of discrimination after they were laid off last year. While Snap was earlier accused of having a sexist workplace culture, according to a Wall Street Journal report, the new allegations now say that women were given equal opportunity to ‘rise up’ in the company ranks. The report citing multiple sources familiar with the matter said that the layoffs were alleged to have disproportionately targeted women. Multiple women who worked on growth and design teams were paid additional cash and stock shares after concerns about discrimination were raised, the report noted. While the two-cost cutting rounds of layoffs affected hundreds of employees at Snap last year, the company reportedly said that the layoffs impacted both men and women and the decisions made while determining the ‘people impacted’ had nothing to do with gender. Variety back in March reported that Snap’s restructuring efforts laid off 220 employees in a move to save $34 million per year in salaries and taxes. Apparently, of the 218 employees that were laid off in the first half of last year, around 70 percent were men, a spokesperson for Snap said. “The company defines the growth and design teams more broadly. Under those definitions, there were nine total layoffs on those teams: six women and three men. The company also said it negotiated additional severance benefits for some male employees,” reports quoting the spokesperson said. As per the WSJ report, Snap also took issue with the characterisation of only women being laid off from the growth and design teams and some employees were given new roles because the team was ‘being disbanded.’ Snap’s alleged sexist workplace culture came in to spotlight after Cheddar revealed an email from the company’s software engineer Shannon Lubetich who highlighted instances and accused Snap of having a ‘toxic’ workplace with a ‘pervasive sexist vibe.’ As per the report, female employees claim to have not received annual performance reviews for years and said that leadership were given to less experience male employees. However, Snap is said to have implemented several changes since the layoffs last year including a mentorship program for female employees, new training for managers as per reports.