The latest round of layoffs at Meta is causing renewed concern over the impact of AI technology on the Irish jobs market.
Around 350 Irish-based jobs are under threat at Facebook's parent company Meta, which employs around 1,800 people in Ireland.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously said that 2026 would be the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way the company works, with investments in AI tools that would involve "flattening teams".
Senior Researcher at the ESRI, Tara McIndoe-Calder, told Behind the Story there are two sides to the coin, and embracing AI technology also comes with opportunities for growth.
"I think that a lot of the previous technological transformations that have affected the labour market have resulted in some disruption, some jobs no longer existing, but in lots of other jobs being created.
So, there will be some jobs where the whole occupation may disappear, but I also think that there are lots of occupations which are unlikely to be very affected by AI, but which will grow in demand. A lot of the caring occupations in healthcare, especially as economies in Europe and the OECD age or grey, which will increase in demand for those types of jobs."
Media committee
Elsewhere, RTÉ’s Director General Kevin Bakhurst appeared before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Media for a scheduled meeting on funding and pensions, where relations around presenter pay that emerged last week, were the focus of much of the questioning.
Behind the Story host, Fran McNulty summed up what, at times, was an acrimonious exchange between committee members and RTÉ representatives:
"I didn't get the sense there was much love in the room at all for RTÉ. If you remember the previous hearings, it came to a point where (committee members) felt 'we think you're doing a great job, we see what you're at and we know this is genuine'.
"I think a lot of them (committee members) are looking at this situation and several of them said, 'here we go again, another issue has arisen'.
"But the point Kevin Bakhurst was making is, if you are going to insist on transparency, and if we have to do all the things that we're being told we have to do, you're going to have things arise.
And for now, he can't see anything else, but he also can’t say there won't be something else in the future.
"And I think, politicians in there are just sick, sore and tired of stuff like this coming up."
You can listen to Behind the Story on the RTÉ Radio Player.
You can also find episodes on Apple here, or on Spotify here.
