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Facebook’s Metaverse Dream Creates 10k Jobs in the EU
By Shane Addinall Oct 23, 2021 TechnologyFacebook announces a massive recruitment drive on the European continent, as they set their sights on making the metaverse a success. The social media company will employ 10,000 high-skill workers over the next 5 years for this cause.Social media giant, Facebook, announced on 17 October that they plan to open ten thousand vacancies in Europe as they contribute toward the successful functioning of the metaverse. The jobs will be available throughout the EU and will be positions of high-skill. In the press release, the company states how important Europe has always been to them.
“From the thousands of employees in the EU to the millions of businesses using our apps and tools every day, Europe is a big part of our success, as Facebook is invested in the success of European companies and the wider economy.”
Over the next five years, Facebook will further their investment in the EU through this recruitment initiative, as they place a bet on Europe’s tech talent.
Virtually Real
If you are not familiar with the term, metaverse refers to an expansive network of constant, real-time depicted 3D worlds, linked into a supposed virtual universe. From what sounds like a Steven Spielberg film, writer Neal Stephenson actually coined the term in his 1992 novel Snow Crash.
In layman's terms, it is a virtual world like in the movie Ready Player One, where people can virtually meet for work, social gatherings, and even trading through virtual and augmented reality.
According to Facebook, they require specialised engineers to bring the metaverse to life and they believe the EU market has the right people to move forward with this. The virtual reality world will not be owned by anyone and will operate similarly to the internet. Facebook hopes to create an increased sense of “virtual presence” through this, as it might create experiences similar to interacting in person. They believe European companies are leaders in several technologies and the continent will shape the metaverse from the get-go.
Facebook and Then Some
This avatar world comes with a few precursors and Facebook started investing in it some time ago. In 2014, they bought the virtual reality tech-gear production company, Oculus, and since then developed the digital world of Horizon.
This virtual world offers co-workers a virtual meeting room, where they can interact as cartoon versions of themselves by wearing VR headsets. Facebook also owns an AI research lab in Europe, and their Facebook Reality Labs office is in Cork, Ireland.
Although the social media company may have a large stake in the metaverse, they are far from alone in the augmented world. Microsoft, Roblox and Epic Games are only some of the other players working toward the realisation of this virtual universe. Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, already presents virtual reality concerts inside its own augmented world, hosting stars like Ariana Grande as an avatar.
Impeccable Timing
Facebook released the news at a calculated time, or it could just be good karma, as the company faces accusations from their former employee, Frances Haugen.
Her damning reports caused major outages of the social platform, spurred a series of Wallstreet Journal articles, and cost the company’s CEO $5,9 billion in one day. Mark Zuckerberg responded to the accusations in an internal letter to his staff, which he made public thereafter and, according to him, the leaked information was not true.
In a report from The Washington Post, they suggested that this could be an attempt by Facebook to salvage their reputation and to reposition the brand.
As Facebook gears toward a reality of increased virtual connectedness, countries like Sweden aim to become cashless by 2023. Technological advances have pros and cons and only time will tell what a metaverse kind-of-world holds for us.
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