The pressure on interest rates that follows the situation in the world as a whole and the possible recession hit capital-intensive sectors such as the metaverse especially hard.
In November 2021, global financial markets reached their temporary peak. And since December, the situation began to decline for various reasons, but primarily because of high inflation.
Tech companies were hit hardest. For example, Meta’s share price was affected by low user growth, a weakening advertising market, and a one-time billion-dollar investment in the metaverse development. Since the beginning of the year, Meta has lost about 50% of its value.
Zuckerberg had to monitor every company expense carefully and cut some of the staff.
A study by New York-based labor market intelligence agency Revelio Labs shows that this volatile economic period dramatically impacts the number of jobs in the metaverse.
Revelio Labs noted that the metaverse job market exploded in July 2021 when Zuckerberg launched his metaverse development initiative. There is an 81% decrease in jobs across the metaverse from April to June.
Jin Yan, an economist at Revelio Labs, believes this could be a “short-term demand-side rush” caused by Mark Zuckerberg’s sudden entry into the VR and AR space.
Despite these numbers, tech companies are looking for specialists in VR or AR, as well as AI, which are technologies that contribute to the development of the metaverse. Moreover, these companies are looking for promotion specialists, lawyers, or those who can combine organizational skills with technical knowledge.
Also, despite the decline, the number of applications for jobs in the metaverse at the end of June 2022 still exceeds the number of applications in January 2022 and last year.
