Meta is expanding its Canadian presence with the creation of a new engineering hub based in Toronto.
The company plans to hire up to 2,500 employees for remote and in-office positions across Canada over the next five years to help build the metaverse. Most of the Canadian job opportunities will be engineering focused and are expected to span building extended reality experiences and Meta technologies.
This expansion will also focus on establishing the first Canadian WhatsApp, Messenger, and Remote Presence engineering teams. Meta also plans on growing its Canadian Reality Labs and AI Research Team.
This announcement was made in Toronto at Meta’s office, where its executives were joined by Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, Victor Fedeli, the Minister of Economic Development and Kaleed Rasheed, the Associate Minister of Digital Government and Creator Communities.
At the event, Ford noted Meta’s long-term commitment to Ontario.
“This major investment…is a strong vote of confidence in our skilled and diverse workforce,” he said.
In addition to the Toronto engineering hub, Meta also announced an additional C$510,000 in unrestricted grants to 17 research labs in Canada that are working on metaverse-focused research. These grants will help labs advance their research.
This is the most recent of Meta’s investments in Canada. Over the years the company has opened an AI Research Lab in Montreal and Reality Labs Research hub in Toronto.