Fears for Irish tech workers as Facebook owner Meta reportedly planning major layoffs

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

Meta employs more than 3,000 people at its Dublin-based office.

These latest layoffs could be the largest in the recent spate of job cuts in the tech sector.

This week, Twitter began a global cull of its 7,500-strong workforce, but many staff in Ireland were told that their jobs were “at risk” of redundancy and that they remain employees of Twitter.

Meanwhile, Stripe entered a 30-day consultation with staff over the job cuts, with the fintech company founded by the Limerick brothers Patrick and John Collison seeking to cut 14% of its staff worldwide.

In recent months, Meta Platforms Inc slashed plans to hire engineers by at least 30%.

Over the summer, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was anticipating one of the worst downturns in recent history.

Just last month, Meta plunged 25% on October 27 - its biggest one-day drop since February.

At the time, Mr Zuckerberg asked investors for patience with the social media giant’s swelling investments in unproven bets at an already-challenging time for digital-advertising companies.

After giving a disappointing revenue outlook, Mr Zuckerberg sought to justify Meta’s ballooning costs to fund its version of virtual reality, the metaverse, as well as the artificial intelligence fueling major changes to its social networks.

Investors, who had already sent the stock down 71% this year, so far did not buy it.

Meta’s market value has collapsed by a whopping $676bn (€678bn) this year, removing it from the ranks of the 20 largest US companies.