Facebook's Irish staff 'really stressed' ahead of reported layoffs

One employee at Facebook in Dublin confirmed that no announcements had been made to staff as of Tuesday morning, but that the workforce as a whole is “really stressed” ahead of the expected announcement. File picture: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

The mood among the thousands of Irish employees of Facebook parent company Meta is “really stressed” ahead of anticipated job losses at the firm.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that an announcement regarding thousands of layoffs is expected at the social media giant by Wednesday.

Employees have already been told to cancel all non-essential travel for this week, a person familiar with the matter told the newspaper.

That news follows on from cuts announced at fellow tech giants Twitter and Stripe within the past week, as the sector struggles to deal with the downturn in the global economic climate.

One employee at Facebook in Dublin confirmed that no announcements had been made to staff as of Tuesday morning, but that the workforce as a whole is “really stressed” ahead of the expected announcement.

Meta employs 3,000 people at its Dublin head office, and an additional 6,000 across multiple sites in Ireland, including its data centre in Clonee in Co. Meath and Reality Labs in Cork.

A Meta spokesperson said they would not be commenting on the Wall Street Journal report but cited CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statement to investors following the company’s disappointing third-quarter results, which saw its share price fall by a fifth after Meta failed to hit its profit targets for the first time.

Mr Zuckerberg said at the time that in 2023 Meta would be focusing on “a small number of high priority growth areas”, with some teams set to “grow meaningfully”, and others likely to “stay flat or shrink”.

Meta’s overall share price has plunged by roughly €700bn over the last year alone amid uncertainty regarding the company’s future direction.

Mr Zuckerberg’s announcement in September of 2021 that his company would be championing the ‘metaverse’, an augmented virtual reality, has thus far failed to bear fruit for the tech giant.