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AS IT ANNOUNCES plans to hire more staff for its Irish operation, Facebook has also received the all-clear to make a number of upgrades to its new Dublin campus in Dublin 4.
During a recent visit to Dublin, the tech giant’s head of operations Sheryl Sandberg revealed the company would hire an additional 1,000 workers across its Dublin and Cork offices and data centre in Meath.
Facebook’s Irish operation is its largest outside California, where it is headquartered. The company opened its Irish office in 2009 and has grown its Irish staff base from 30 to 4,000 in the intervening decade.
The tech firm’s main international office is currently based in Dublin’s ‘Silicon Docks’, but last year Facebook revealed it would relocate just over 2,000 of its Dublin-based workers to a new campus in Dublin 4.
The 5.6-hectare site in Ballsbridge, which is currently occupied by AIB, is located opposite the RDS and has the potential to house 7,000 workers.
Facebook’s new home is made up of four buildings across two blocks, which are split down the middle by the office development’s concourse.
After announcing its plans to take up the lease on the Dublin 4 property, planning permission was filed by developers to make a number of changes to the property “to address the requirements of the proposed tenant”.
The plans – filed the same day Facebook announced it would move into the property in November – included the construction of a network of bridges to connect the office blocks.
Documents sent to Dublin council show that one of the three bridges would span the width of the campus square and be visible from the road in front of the RDS.
The 24m bridge across the concourse would connect the second level of each office block, while a pair of shorter two-storey bridges would also link the office blocks adjacent to one another.
Prior to the announcement that Facebook would lease the site, the developers of the project – Fibonacci Property ICAV – made numerous applications for planning permission to modernise the AIB bankcentre in Ballsbridge.
Its applications were largely approved by Dublin council, with some elements of the new developments proposed slightly downsized by the local authority.
Fibonacci Property ICAV is a joint venture between well-known property developer Johnny Ronan and Colony Capital – the funding partners behind his real estate group.
In the group’s latest application to develop the site, Fibonacci Property indicated that changes to the roof of each office block had been requested by the new tenant to help the buildings blend in with the skyline.
Facebook also requested some structural amendments to the building that would make the building more friendly to an open-plan office setting.
The local authority also approved that request and the creation of two large atriums at ground level to face onto the campus concourse. The developers said these halls would make the concourse more of a focal point.
Flying visit
When Facebook revealed it would relocate to Dublin 4, the Irish Times reported that staff could start moving into the offices as early as March or April of this year.
In her address in Dublin, Sandberg said that Facebook plans to hire the new 1,000 staff this year and that the company is looking for employees for its engineering, safety, legal, policy, marketing and sales teams.
Facebook’s plans to ramp up its presence in Ireland have come at a time when other large tech firms are also bolstering their Irish bases.
Salesforce recently revealed plans to hire an additional 1,500 workers in Dublin, while Amazon also announced plans last year to take on another 1,000 staff.
Fellow tech giant Google is also gearing up to increase staff at its Dublin operation and has acquired a number of new office blocks to house employees in Dublin’s ‘Silicon Docks’.
Written by Killian Woods and posted on Fora.ie
Written by Fora Staff and posted on TheJournal.ie
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Now all they need is somewhere to house their staff. How about building their staff an apartment block somewhere on the DART line like oooh Dalkey.
@Dave O’Hanlon: With the salaries 80%+ of their Irish staff are on (less than the living wage) they’d be lucky to be able to afford to share 4 to a room in the suburbs.
@Shane Corry: What’s your source for this information? A quick look at Glassdoor will show you that even for non management roles most staff in Facebook are on north of €35k per annum, and most are on significantly more than that. https://www.glassdoor.ie/Salary/Facebook-Dublin-Salaries-EI_IE40772.0,8_IL.9,15_IM1052_IP2.htm?countryRedirect=true
I don’t work at Facebook nor do I particularly like them as a company. I’m just tired of seeing dubious information here thrown about here all the time.
@Adrian Mac: As of the end of 2017, Facebook claimed to employee 2000 people in Ireland while having a total number of workers at 6300. Alright, I admit that’s not 80%, more like 70%.
The employees are tech & ops roles, the contractors, support & content-review roles and while Facebook and other multi-nationals such as Google love to quote figures like on average their staff members are on €80K etc. they only include employees in these figures.
Facebook base support staff are on €22.5K a year (€10.70/hr) and their base content-review staff are on €23.5K a year (€11.25/hr).
And before you say “but the agency sets the salary, not FB”, Facebook’s contractors are paid the same for each role regardless of the agency and they all work within Facebook’s offices. The only difference between them and employees is they get paid way less, have next to no benefits and only have job security for 6-12 months.
There was an in-depth report on Google’s bad practises with contractors last year from the Irish Times that also covered quite a bit on Facebook’s contractor operations here too.
@Adrian Mac: https://www.glassdoor.ie/Salary/Arvato-Content-Reviewer-Dublin-Salaries-EJI_IE39834.0,6_KO7,23_IL.24,30_IM1052.htm To see most of the Glassdoor reviews you need to look on the Agency’s page.
Not sure about Facebook but Google has previously gotten some hate over reporting any Glassdoor or Indeed review for a role that’s through an agency so that they wouldn’t appear on their own page.
@Shane Corry:
Why would you expect more than 23.5k anyway? It’s essentially an unskilled job with limited responsibility. Content reviewers normally receive low pay egardless of the employer.
What are they planning to do with their current offices down by Grand Canal Plaza?
@dublindamo:
It will be used to store Facebook likes and duck-face photos
@dublindamo: They’ve got another couple of big buildings too, one in North Dock and another near Charlemont.
Would be great if this move freed up all three buildings as it would have a net effect of bringing a lot of new space onto the market given the AIB campus wasn’t really in proper use recently.
We need more bunk beds
As if they were going to be refused.
@Ian James Burgess:
Intel were.
Moan moan moan……
This stinks of tax exemption.
Sure they’re world dominant but they’ll happily eat up the most expensive land in the country that’s patting them on the back.
It’s great that they’re creating jobs but I’m one of many who has had to leave the area I semi grew up in because of this.
Not everyone who has a background in Sandymount is rich!
I’ll never live in my home town.
I knew that before fb bought that building.
This just confirms it!
Ps I’m at a 5.1 level of toxic comment here.
Ridiculous!
I don’t believe I’ve offended anyone.
That changed to 6.4 in that sentence!
Bullshit! (Up to 8.6) :)
@Lion Giggs: How is leasing a building looking for tax exemption?
@Accord Moan Eye: How has fb and google been allowed to take over the most expensive part of Ireland?
@Lion Giggs:
Probably because they paid for it
@Lion Giggs: they paid for it. And before it was FB it was our bank AIB as Tennants. It wasn’t ever some massive housing estate and if houses are to be built here in the future do you realise the cost of building them would be so therefore the cost of purchasing would be through the roof.
Typical f..king Irish on here just slagging off Facebook and whinging about tax.. Not a single positive comment about the creation of new jobs.
Facebook is on it way out that’s why there merging there platform.
have your say