Labour’s enterprise spokesperson George Lawlor has expressed his concern of a contagion of redundancies in the tech sector following the announcement by Meta that it is to cut up to 10% of its global workforce.
The Wexford TD said “my thoughts are primarily with those working for Meta in Ireland, this is no doubt a deeply uneasy and worrying time. These people need clarity on their roles today and into the future.”
“In recent months, we have learned of new redundancies from Google, Meta, Amazon, Twitter, PayPal, Stripe, Salesforce, Intel and Microsoft. There is clearly a contagion spreading across the technology sector as organisations pivot to deal with the rise in AI,” he said.
“It is not just workers who are directly employed by Meta which are affected either. The cumulative effect of these cuts are devastating for families and for people who are indirectly employed by the tech industry are too. Combined with spiralling food, fuel, energy, and housing prices, we need Government to come to the table with clear plans for people who could be impacted.
Lawlor said, “this is a time of great uncertainty in the labour market and it will be difficult for those who find themselves out of work, to get back on their feet in the short term.”
“As a country, we need to get serious on developing a new national industrial policy that will continue to ensure that we can attract the kind of high quality foreign direct investment but it must also ensure good, secure, union jobs while also growing our indigenous enterprise base.”