All workers must be treated with “respect and dignity” and in line with Irish law, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said, as Facebook owner Meta has announced plans to cut 11,000 jobs globally.
Mr Martin said the Government’s focus will be on Irish workers at the company who “could be getting bad news in the coming days” and it would do “everything we possibly can to help them”.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Wednesday, the Taoiseach said it was a “very difficult situation” and that Enterprise Ireland, IDA, the Department of Social Protection and Solas all “stand ready” to help workers who could be affected.
[ Meta staff in Ireland brace for job cutsOpens in new window ]
Facebook parent Meta has announced plans to cut some 13 per cent of the social media giant’s 87,000-strong global workforce. In Ireland, the cuts are set to impact Meta’s 3,000 directly employed staff, the company told Irish staff this morning, although the scale of the lay-offs is not yet known.
In a statement, Meta said the 6,000 or so contractors it employs in Ireland through third party companies will not be affected.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik raised questions of whether, in light of the announcement as well as job losses at Twitter and Stripe, the Government would provide for much stronger rights for employees and whether sanctions and penalties would be applied to companies found in breach of existing employment law.
Mr Martin said the technology sector was going through a “difficult phase globally” and there were manifestations of that in Ireland. He said it was his understanding there would be “proper consultation” with employees at Meta by the company.
Mr Martin said the context of the Twitter job losses last week was “much different” and that he was “not happy” with the manner in which employees had been communicated with.
“There are obligations on employers in terms of proposing collective redundancies for example, which involves fines, if they fail to consult with representatives or fail to provide certain information to employees when proposing a collective redundancy,” he said.
“There are fines covering that and the law will be enacted. However, in the context of Meta, our understanding is there will be full consultation, proper consultation with employees and the same applies to Stripe.”
The Taoiseach said there needed to be “perspective and balance” when analysing what was happening in the tech sector.
“We do have to see it against the backdrop of very rapid expansion over the last number of years,” he added.
“We have to make sure that we do everything we possibly can to help the workers in this situation and we have a good system for doing that…we should also seek out new opportunities that will arise in the reorganisation of this sector and new opportunities will always arrive.”
Mr Martin said Ireland had experienced almost full employment over the last six to nine months and that hopefully there would be opportunities in the tech sector.
Ms Bacik said many people in her constituency of Dublin Bay South were employed by Meta who “currently don’t know whether they will be in a job in a few weeks’ time” and there were couples who both worked for tech companies.
“They’ve got massive mortgages, they’ve got enormous childcare fees. They’re locked into these commitments and they’re facing such an uncertain future where they’re seeing these prospective job losses,” she said.
Ms Bacik said Twitter’s treatment of its staff last week, locking them out of their email accounts and workplace, was “no way to treat individuals”.
