Tech giants 'committed to Irish operations' despite job losses
The Meta office European headquarters in Dublin. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA
Tech giants have assured the Government that they remain committed to their Irish operations despite Facebook’s expected layoff of up to 400 staff.
The company’s 3,000 permanent staff at its European head office in Dublin are anxiously waiting to hear if they will be among the expected Irish redundances.
Globally, Facebook’s parent company Meta is cutting 11,000 jobs, or just under 13% of its workforce.
Meta said that the Irish job losses would track those being implemented worldwide, which would see between 350 and 400 staff here let go.
The tech giant has insisted today’s announcement only affects its full-time employees, and not its 6,000 third-party contractors here.
The announcement follows similar job cuts by fellow tech giants Stripe and Twitter in recent days.
Meta said that despite the job losses, Ireland remains “an integral part” of its operations and insisted the move will not affect its long-term investment plans for the country, or the location of its international headquarters.
A spokesperson said Meta had informed the Department of Enterprise and the IDA of the layoffs in advance, per its statutory obligations, something Twitter failed to do when it made its job cuts announcement last week.
“We appreciate Ireland’s and in particular the Irish Government’s ongoing support for our operations here,” the Meta spokesperson said.
Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Leo Varadkar confirmed that the Government had been in dialogue with Meta over the past number of days. He acknowledged that the jobs losses are bad news and are coming at a particularly difficult time of year for workers.
He said the Government had the “absolute assurance from the company that all the legal processes will be respected” and that there would be 30 days of consultation and a redundancy package.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the redundancy package will amount to 16 weeks’ pay for all American employees, together with an additional two weeks’ pay for each year of service, and the treatment for Meta workers outside the US “will be similar”.
Mr Varadkar told his Cabinet colleagues that staff laid off at Meta and Twitter will be offered full assistance to find other employment, set up their own business, or return to education or training.
He said that all of the companies involved have committed to maintaining a significant presence in Ireland in the future.
Ministers were also told that the tech sector is still growing here, and that this should not be seen as a major crisis in the tech sector.
Mr Varadkar said the fact that a small number of tech companies contributed such a large portion of our corporation tax was both a “good thing” and a “vulnerability” and was why the Government was setting aside a reserve fund.
Mr Varadkar described it as a downsizing after years of phenomenal growth, and the sector will grow again in the medium term. The future is digital, he said.
A Government spokesperson said that the IDA will continue to engage with those affected by the layoffs and the message is that there are still a lot of tech sector opportunities.
Announcing the redundancies, Mark Zuckerberg took personal responsibility for the losses, saying he had misjudged the boom in e-commerce and tech during the Covid lockdowns which saw Facebook nearly double its workforce to 87,000 in two years.
Zuckerberg said that the layoffs amount to “some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history”.
The company has suffered a serious dip in fortunes in 2022, with its share value plummeting by more than €700m in its latest results at the end of October amid a global economic slowdown.
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