Facebook launches search for Joburg staff

Johannesburg - Social network Facebook is looking to hire staff in Johannesburg - a move that could signal the company’s opening of its first African office.

Last week, Facebook posted an advertisement on LinkedIn for a ‘Regional Measurement Lead Role’ in South Africa.

“Facebook is seeking a highly quantitative, driven, and creative measurement lead to work within our Marketing Science Regional Measurement team to support its advertising business in South Africa and wider African market,” reads the job post, which appears on Facebook’s official LinkedIn page.

“This role will be working to apply techniques to understand consumers and ad effectiveness through innovative analytics, methods, and products. This position is full time and located in Johannesburg, South Africa,” according to the job post.

Fin24 contacted Facebook’s public relations agency in South Africa to ask if the social network is opening up an office in Johannesburg.

However, the public relations agency said that Facebook is not commenting at this stage on a possible Johannesburg office.

In June 2014, Iain MacKenzie, a spokesperson for Facebook in Africa, offered the following response when Fin24 asked him if the social network planned on opening a South Africa office:

“Yes we are definitely increasing our focus. The team is currently based in Dubai, but we hope to have an office soon,” he said, referring to the social network currently running its African business from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) city.

Facebook is South Africa’s biggest social network with 11.8 million users, according to the World Wide Worx and Fuseware SA Social Media Landscape 2015 report.