Facebook to double its workforce in the capital

FACEBOOK plans to almost double its workforce in Dublin after confirming it has signed a deal for an additional office building in the city.

The move means that almost 10,000 of Dublin city’s industrial jobs will soon be provided by two companies – Facebook and Google.

It could also spark a new property boom in Dublin’s East Wall area, where the tech giant’s new facility will be located.

Facebook’s Irish boss, Gareth Lambe, says its new property in Dublin’s north docklands has space for 800 additional staff.

Facebook currently employs 1,600 people in its Grand Canal Square premises, but expects to fill that over the next 12 months.

“In our existing building, we have the capacity for 2,000 people.

“But we have now reached over 1,600 and we’re growing so fast that it’s filling up, so we’ve taken space for another 800 desks in a new building in East Wall with growth over the next few years in mind,” he said.

Mr Lambe, who also runs sales forecasting and other strategic functions for Facebook across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia, added: “Over the next number of years, if the business and platform continue to grow, we expect to continue to grow pretty substantially in Ireland.

“It’s by far our largest footprint of any country in the world outside our Silicon Valley headquarters.”

Mr Lambe said the Dublin operation’s success is the reason for extra investment from Facebook. “The business is growing pretty dramatically. Our last earnings showed growth of over 50pc year on year,” he said.

“When you’re growing users and business as fast as that, we [in Ireland] need to scale up. We’ve been very successful here in Ireland at delivering results for Facebook. So we continue to get investment.”

See full interview, Business Week