Up to 350 jobs under threat at Meta in Ireland

It is understood about 350 jobs located in Ireland are under threat at Meta.

The technology company told employees in a memo last month that it planned to cut 10% of its workforce – roughly 8,000 staff.

It said it would also not fill thousands more open jobs it had been hiring for.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ reports that Irish-based staff received early morning emails notifying them that they will be potentially affected by the redundancies.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has submitted a collective redundancy notification to the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment in the Republic of Ireland.

The tech giant employs about 1,800 people in Ireland.

Meta has been approached for comment.

The BBC previously reported that a key reason for Meta’s layoffs is its increased spending in other areas of the company, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), for which it will this year spend $135bn (£100bn).

This is roughly equal to the amount it has spent on AI in the previous three years combined, according to a person who viewed the memo.

Since 2022, Meta has enacted several rounds of job cuts, shedding tens of thousands of workers.

But it had started hiring again, and last year its overall number of employees looked to be at about the same level it had been at before its initial layoff.

The latest jobs cuts will be Meta’s largest layoff since 2023.

A number of other tech firms, most of which are also spending huge sums on building tools and infrastructure for AI technology, have also enacted swathes of job cuts this year.

The Irish government’s Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said on Wednesday that it will support Meta employees.

“My message is very clear to employees in Meta, first of all the government will have your back,” he said.

“We will support you to gain employment again.”

Burke added that there is a “huge demand” in the wider economy for “the skill sets that many have in Meta and the IT sector” and that the government will provide “any additional training”.

“I acknowledge that it is very distressing when you have an uncertain future, when you get news of this magnitude but the government will work with you to support you and to grow your career path,” he said.

“Any support that families who are getting this news will need will be given by the government right across skills and supports which will be critically important.”

The Financial Services Union (FSU), which represents workers in the technology sector, said “full and transparent stakeholder involvement is required from unions to employers and regulators to legislators to manage the change that AI will make to the workplace and to jobs”.

“Without that collaboration we will continue to see announcements of job losses like we have seen today,” the FSU added.

Labour’s enterprise spokesperson George Lawlor said the government “must work with Meta to ensure fairness is applied and to protect jobs and livelihoods where possible”.

Lawlor urged the ministers at the Department of Enterprise to develop a strategy to protect technology jobs in Ireland and said it was a “deeply worrying and stressful time” for Meta employees.

“It is not just workers who are directly employed by these companies which are affected either,” he added.

“The cumulative effect of these cuts are devastating for families and for people who are indirectly employed by the tech industry are too.”