LAST UPDATE | 27 Apr

IRISH WORKERS IN Dublin-based Meta client firm Covalen have been told that over 700 roles are at risk, just days after the tech giant announced global layoffs. 

Workers were called into a meeting at 3pm today in Covalen’s Sandyford offices, where staff work on Meta projects. 

They were told that 720 roles will be at risk, including over 500 jobs in AI annotation, as well as roles in content moderation, quality analysis, and at management level. 

The Journal previously reported that Covalen announced 400 roles were at risk last November, and in January workers carried out industrial action over a dispute related to redundancy pay and union recognition.

One staff member who was in today’s meeting said that new employees “are in shock” but the rest of the workforce “are battle-hardened”. 

They added that the reason given in the meeting for the redundancies was a change in “business conditions”, and that management stressed that the decision was “not performance-related”. 

A spokesperson for Covalen told The Journal that it has commenced consultation with “a number of employees in relation to potential redundancies within its Dublin operations”. 

“The company is engaging directly and proactively to support the affected teams through this transition and is following the required consultation process in line with our obligations,” the spokesperson added. 

This comes after Meta sent a memo to staff last week warning that it had plans to cut its workforce by 10% globally, which would equate to around 8,000 roles being affected. 

Meta’s announcement comes as it has plans to double its spend on artificial intelligence (AI) projects this year, as the company said it could spend up to $135 billion. 

In the memo announcing upcoming job cuts to staff last week, this investment was referenced as workers were told that job cuts to begin on 20 May would be “part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.” 

Meta directly employs roughly 1,800 staff in Ireland, but hundreds of workers work on Meta projects through client firms like Covalen and Accenture. 

Last week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin commented on Meta’s plans to downsize its workforce. 

He said that there is concern overall when it comes to the impact of AI on jobs, and added that the government is “looking at proposals to see how we can identify the implications and impact of AI on the world over the next number of years”. 

Martin added that while AI may generate new jobs, there are signs that there will be a significant upheaval in the jobs market over the next few years, which may occur “earlier rather than later” in the next decade. 

John Bohan, organiser with the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU), which represents hundreds of Covalen staff members, said that this announcement is a “crushing blow”. 

“Yet again we’re seeing big tech cast aside ordinary working people in pursuit of their AI spending, Covalen has to step up and support workers and the government needs to act on the increasing dangers posed to the Irish labour market,” Bohan further said. 

CWU deputy general secretary Ian McArdle said that while ordinary workers struggle, Big Tech companies continue to record massive profits.

“We know the real reason behind these cuts. Meta is shedding thousands of jobs worldwide, cutting staff and tearing up vendor contracts simply to pay for its massive new Artificial Intelligence bills,” he said.

“Once again, tech workers are losing their livelihoods to fund the shifting priorities of tech giants.”

He outlined four demands for Covalen and for the government.

He called for Covalen to negotiate directly with the CWU, to provide “fair and substantial” redundancy packages, for the Taoiseach and Minister for Enterprise to engage with Covalen union representatives and for Meta to drop its strict six-month “cooling-off” period for other meta-vendors.

A Meta spokesperson said that over the next few years Meta will be “deploying more advanced AI systems” to transform content enforcement operations across its platforms. 

“As we do that, we’ll be reducing our reliance on third-party vendors and strengthening our internal systems,” they added. 

The spokesperson said that Meta will be “approaching this transformation thoughtfully” and that the multinational will report on how advanced AI systems are performing.