The Facebook Metaverse will create 10,000 new jobs in the EU

10,000 high-skilled jobs will be created over the next five years, as part of Facebook’s sweeping Metaverse ambition.
18 October 2021

Facebook is creating 10,000 new jobs in the EU for its Metaverse. Source: AFP

  • With 10,000 new jobs to be made available by 2026, Facebook is eyeing high-skilled engineers in countries across the EU bloc
  • The company will apparently focus its recruitment drive in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Ireland

The social media behemoth has been doing everything to turn its ‘Metaverse’ ambitions into reality, except perhaps slowing down. Facebook is now targeting to create 10,000 high-skilled jobs within the European Union (EU) over the next five years, to build its virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.

The jobs announcement came on the heels of a recent US$50 million investment by the company that will be made over a two-year period, for initiatives within a metaverse-like ecosystem, such as XR Programs and Research Fund. For that, Facebook intends to collaborate with industry partners, civil rights groups, governments, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions to develop technologies towards building out the metaverse more responsibly.

Now hiring — jobs in the Facebook Metaverse

Facebook, as per its blog posting, claims that it is at the start of a journey to help build the next computing platform. “Working with others, we’re developing what is often referred to as the metaverse — a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like virtual and augmented reality,” VP Global Affairs Nick Clegg and VP Central Products Javier Olivan said.

For Facebook, the metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities, and Europeans will have a hand in shaping it right from the start. The European hires will include “highly specialized engineers” across the bloc, but the company otherwise gave few details of its plans for the new metaverse team. 

A report by CNBC however did mention that Facebook is focusing its recruitment drive in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, and Ireland. Facebook’s blog highlighted how the EU has “a number of advantages that make it a great place for tech companies to invest — a large consumer market, first class universities and, crucially, top-quality talent.”

Clegg and Olivan also emphasized how European companies are, at the cutting edge of several fields — whether it’s the German biotech helping to develop the first-ever mRNA vaccine or the coalition of European neo-banks leading the future of finance. “Spain is seeing record levels of investment into startups, involved in everything from online grocery delivery to neuroelectronics, while Sweden is on its way to becoming the world’s first cashless society by 2023,” they added.

Not excluding how Europe is a crucial market to Facebook, Clegg and Olivan mentioned the “thousands of employees in the EU to the millions of businesses using our apps and tools every day, Europe is a big part of our success, as Facebook is invested in the success of European companies and the wider economy.”

To recall, Facebook has invested in Europe heavily over the years — from funding grants at the Technical University of Munich, to opening its first major European AI research lab and FAIR accelerator program in France and a Facebook Reality Labs office in Cork. 

Interestingly, Clegg and Olivan mentioned how European policymakers are leading the way in helping to embed European values like free expression, privacy, transparency and the rights of individuals into the day-to-day workings of the internet

They then claim that Facebook shares these values and have taken considerable action over the years to uphold them. “We hope to see the completion of the Digital Single Market to support Europe’s existing advantages, as well as stability on international data flows, which are essential to a flourishing digital economy,” they said.