Meta has confirmed that it is cutting 11,000 jobs globally - putting hundreds of Irish workers at risk in the process.
In a message earlier on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg informed the public that the company will reduce the size of the global workforce by about 13%.
Meta - which owns Facebook and WhatsApp - employs 3,000 people in Ireland, with that 13% translating to 390 cuts here.
READ MORE: Facebook assures Irish Government it will follow redundancy laws after job cuts announced
A Meta spokesperson confirmed: "In Ireland, the timeline and process will be defined by Irish government guidelines which will see potentially impacted employees entering collective consultation."
Meta has informed the relevant policy stakeholders – the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, IDA - of the decision.
The spokesperson continued: "As the location of our international HQ, Ireland is an integral part of our company and our operations. Today’s announcement and the process does not have any impact on Ireland’s status, or on our long-term investment plans in Ireland. We appreciate Ireland’s and in particular the Irish Government’s ongoing support for our operations here."
In his message, Mr Zuckerberg explained why the cuts were coming.
He said: "At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments.
" Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected.
"I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that."
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