Meta on Wednesday began a second round of layoffs as the company downsizes amid a tumultuous tech market.

The US-based Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp parent firm confirmed on Wednesday that the latest rounds of layoffs has begun and it’s believed it will immediately let 4,000 workers go as part of a larger tranche of 10,000 job cuts announced in March.

It is not yet known how many of Meta’s workers in Ireland will be let go in this round and one source told Independent.ie that the expectation is that most Irish employees affected won’t know for a number of weeks, possibly towards the end of May.

It’s understood just a small number of staff will be let go this month but that the number next month may be much higher when Meta’s business groups are subject to layoffs.

Meta currently has approximately 3,000 Irish full-time employees and almost double that number of contractors working for the company.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that, in some cases, it may take until the end of the year to finalise the restructuring layoffs.

“Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven't yet hired,” he said.

Last year, Meta announced 350 Irish layoffs as part of a job-cutting drive that saw 11,000 staff (13pc of the company) let go. It will have let go roughly a quarter of its workforce - 21,000 people - by the end of this round of cuts.

Elsewhere today, it was confirmed that jobs platform Indeed would let go 225 Irish workers from its workforce of 1,400 in this country, as part of a 2,200 job cull worldwide.