Some Twitter employees in Europe failed to get their November salaries on time

Since Elon Musk took over, about two-thirds of Twitter's employees have been laid off. Even those who remain with the company seem to be having a tough time. Some European employees have not yet received their November wages.

Twitter employees in the UK received an email on the afternoon of November 25th, London time, informing them that they would be due on November 28th. Along with the email, which was sent to all Twitter employees in the EMEA region, employees also received monthly pay slips. However, Twitter employees in the UK and Germany were not paid on time.

In an email to current and former employees, Twitter wrote,

We noticed that some of you may not have received your November 2022 salaries. Payments have been made to our Twitter bank accounts, and as usual, nothing has changed in this process. This may be due to a delay in interbank settlement, which we are actively investigating and will keep in touch with you.

But four independent sources in the UK and Germany said they had not been paid on the morning of payday. The sources include current and former Twitter employees, who still receive months of salary as severance pay as part of their departure from the company.

Typically, Twitter pays the 28th of every month as a payday. If it’s a Monday, Twitter would normally allocate funds the previous Friday, and the paychecks would reach Twitter employees’ accounts by midnight on Saturday. Twitter has previously been criticized by former employees for not paying severance packages on time, with many even running into debt.

While employees in the U.K. and Germany have not been paid, those in the Netherlands and Ireland have not been affected, suggesting that the problem was with people and operations rather than Twitter deliberately refusing to pay employees.

One former UK-based Twitter employee who was affected said,

the company just isn't running well enough.

A former Twitter employee has shared screenshots of their bank accounts showing their wages not arriving, putting them in overdraft woes.

The former employee said,

In the beginning, they told you that you were fired, but we would try to keep your job. Then, you were told you could keep getting paid. Now it's payday and our account is still empty. Unable to repay debts.

am ashamed that I believed the executives and they are all getting their money now and enjoying it happily while the rest of us have to continue to suffer. It is a very Harsh way, not only forcing people to resign voluntarily, but also trying to avoid severance pay.

As of midday UK time, some staff reported that they were being paid against a different reference to how Twitter usually pays them. A former employee said an estimate based on conversations in Slack groups between former and current staff suggested that around 80% of staff had not been paid by around 1 pm UK time.

A former employee shared a screenshot showing that money had arrived in the account that morning, but it was then canceled. Another former Twitter employee said that at least 20 people had to call their mortgage providers because their paychecks didn't arrive in time due to insufficient funds in their accounts.

Some Twitter employees in the UK were still unpaid as of 6 pm UK time, according to people with knowledge of Twitter's workflow. Some have received an email stating that the receiving bank is being investigated for fraud. Others reported that payroll payments came from different banks that Twitter doesn't typically use for payroll payments, contradicting Twitter's earlier claim to employees that "as usual, there are no changes to the process.

Twitter didn't respond to a request for comment, and it's unclear if the company has any PR staff left after the layoffs.