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Meta to sublet part of Dublin headquarters after cutting 11,000 jobs

By Nagasunder in UK Business News, posted December 9, 2022

Meta's massive job cuts mean the Facebook owner will now sublet part of its European headquarters in Dublin.

The company recently laid off 11,000 employees which mean its plans to expand in the Irish city have been put on hold.

The company had intended to increase its Dublin HQ through the addition of the fifth building to its current property in the Ballsbridge area of the Irish capital and agreed on a 25-year lease on a building in Fibonacci Square in 2018.

But now that building will now be let out more than it is occupied by Meta, the Irish Times reported.

The firm is letting out all of the 375,000-square-foot building after the initial round of layoffs, which saw its headcount drop by 13 percent.

The Instagram and WhatsApp owner is also shutting down its Grand Canal Dock offices as it downsizes its Dublin footprint due to tumbling profits and a reduction in sales.

Meta is planning to decrease its office space in London and is said to want to rent out the whole of a new property in Regent’s Place at Triton Square.

Other London offices, as well as Facebook’s main UK base in King’s Cross, are not believed to be affected by the retrenchment plans.

A Meta spokesman said: “We remain firmly committed to the UK and Ireland. In early 2023, employees based in our Grand Canal office will move to our existing campus in Ballsbridge, Dublin, which will be the primary location of our International HQ.

“As part of the ongoing review of our sites globally, we have decided to sublet the Triton Square office and the final phase of the Ballsbridge campus.”

The social media company's profits were cut in half in the three months to September as CEO Mark Zuckerberg's focus on his metaverse project caused sales to fall to $27.7 billion (£22.6 billion), a four percent drop from the previous year's trading period.

When he announced in November that 13 percent of Meta staff would be made redundant as a result of the poor financial results, Mr. Zuckerberg said: “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here”.

The metaverse is Meta's grand plan to create a virtual world where businesses and consumers can work, live, and play. Consumers will wear virtual reality headsets and communicate in a large online world.

According to critics, the metaverse project lacks clarity.

According to a survey conducted by the London law firm Gowling WLG, roughly 40 percent of Britons have no understanding of the metaverse at all.

Gowling partner Davey Brennan said: “When asked how they feel about the idea of spending time in the metaverse, half of UK consumers are yet to make up their mind."

Other tech companies are also laying off their workforce and decreasing their office footprints. Twitter, which has already laid about 5,000 of its staff since Elon Musk bought it in October, has supposedly shut down all except one of its offices in San Francisco.

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Reports propose Mr. Musk might transfer the company’s HQ to Texas amidst a steeping row with San Francisco’s city council over planning limitations. Some of Twitter’s offices have had bedrooms fitted, which officials say is a breach of change-of-use rules.

In the interim, Twitter’s London office has been empty all through November. The company no more has a Public relations department and did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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