Facebook to hire 500 new staff in UK
FACEBOOK, INC. is to increase its UK head count by 50%, hiring 500 new staff and backing the UK capital as an important technology hub.
The social media company is moving to a new London headquarters in 2017, and has plans to up its head count from 1,000 to 1,500, the company said in a statement Monday.
“Many of those new roles will be high-skilled engineering jobs,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice-president for the EMEA region. “The UK remains one of the best places to be a tech company and is an important part of Facebook’s story.”
The announcement extends a recent string of similar promises made by major US tech companies regarding their plans in the UK.
Last week, Google cemented plans that it would expand in the UK, saying it will goahead with plans to complete a new London office that can hold as many as 7,000 workers — 3,000 more than a spokesman said it currently employs in the UK.
Apple, Inc. said in September it is leasing about 500,000 square feet (46,451 square meters) of office space at Battersea Power Station on the south bank of London’s River Thames.
Facebook arrived in London in 2007, and the UK is now home to its largest engineering base outside of the US Its Workplace offering, which lets employees collaborate with one another on products, was developed in the UK capital.
In the statement on Monday, Facebook noted the breadth of nationalities — over 65 — it employed in London.
Multinational companies in the UK have been busy grappling with the UK’s plans for leaving the EU — in particular whether they will be easily able to hire workers from the bloc. —