What just happened? In what feels like a slightly ironic move, Meta, one of the many companies going all-in on AI, is bringing the job board back to Facebook at a time when artificial intelligence is causing mass layoffs across industries.
Meta writes that Facebook jobs will offer a new way for people in the US to find and enquire about local jobs. Users can search for new jobs via a dedicated tab in the Marketplace section, where they can be filtered by category, distance, and job type. Local businesses can also post directly to their Facebook pages, and the posts may appear in relevant local and career-focused Facebook Groups.
Meta has several policies regarding its job listings. The positions must be for those aged 18 or older, and the usual rules about discrimination apply. Anything that involves illegal or recreational drugs, products and services is off limits, as are adult services and multi-level marketing jobs.
Facebook seems quite stringent about posts not containing profanity or bad grammar and punctuation. The advertised positions must be actual jobs, and job posts must not promote employment opportunities in a sexually suggestive manner.In-person childcare jobs aren't allowed, either.
Job applicants will be able to contact employers directly using Messenger, where they can ask questions about the position and schedule interviews.
The generative AI boom, of which Meta is playing a large role, has disrupted the jobs market like nothing before. Entry-level roles are being hit particularly hard – Anthropic's CEO believes half of these white-collar jobs will be erased in the next five years – which could be why Meta is pushing the return of the job board as a benefit for "young adults." OpenAI is going down the same route, having recently announced it is working on a hiring platform that will use AI to match candidates with their ideal positions.
You might remember Facebook jobs from its original incarnation. It was introduced to the platform in the US and Canada back in 2017, allowing businesses to post job openings directly on their Facebook Pages. Users could browse listings, apply via Facebook Messenger, and even use their existing Facebook profile details to auto-fill applications. It was expanded to more than 40 countries in 2018 and integrated into the Jobs tab in the Marketplace section.
But Facebook Jobs started to decline following the pandemic. The feature became available only to those in the US and Canada in 2022 before being shut down completely in 2023. Facebook still allows people to post job listings via ads, though.
Image credit: Eric Prouzet
AI is killing jobs, so Meta is reviving the Facebook job board
