The US internet giant Facebook says it plans to create 10,000 new jobs in the European Union over the next five years. According to a blog post published by the company on Monday, the “highly qualified jobs” are to be created in order to build the virtual world called Metaverse. Accordingly, among other things, «highly specialized engineers» have chances of being hired.
“The EU has a number of advantages that make it a great place for tech companies to invest,” said Facebook. These advantages included “a large consumer market, first-class universities” and a highly talented workforce.
Zuckerberg relies on virtual reality
As one of several companies, Facebook is currently working on the creation of a Metaverse, a virtual world in which users can meet, spend money, consume media and possibly even work. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (37) regards the project as central to the future of the group.
According to Wikipedia, the metaverse is a collective virtual space created by the convergence of virtually augmented physical reality and physically persistent virtual space. Facebook’s vision of such a metaverse is a world that exists parallel to and independently of a real, physical world, with its own currency and economic system. A virtual world in which people can communicate and interact with one another at the same time and in real time.
The Metaverse has the potential to help open up access to “new creative, social and economic opportunities,” said Facebook. “And the Europeans will help shape it from the start.”
Facebook counters negative headlines
The announcement by Facebook was made against the background of massive negative headlines for the tech group in the past few weeks. The company was exposed to a storm of indignation after revelations by the former Facebook manager Frances Haugen (37).
At the beginning of October, Haugen called for stricter regulation of the online giant before the US Congress and warned of the harmful effects of Facebook products on children and democracy. The day before, a gigantic breakdown on Facebook had led to the website, Instagram and Whatsapp being down for hours. (kes / AFP)