Facebook plans to double its workforce

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Facebook could expand its workforce by as much as 50 per cent in 2009, according to its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg said that the social network's growth plans would be helped by the recession. Nobody else is hiring, which has lead to a surplus of engineers.

But he added that Facebook wouldn’t match the pace of other start-ups when it came to expanding its workforce, as he was trying to keep costs down in order to see positive cash flow next year.

According to a report by Deloitte, Facebook doesn’t make much money per user, with the average revenue per user likely measured in pennies rather than pounds.

That said, Facebook hasn’t stopped making acquisitions, recently buying social networking aggregator FriendFeed for an undisclosed amount.

Facebook’s hiring drive is in stark contrast to one of its rivals. News Corp’s MySpace has cut 30 per cent of its workforce due to the recession and increasing competition.

Facebook UK hadn't responded to our request for comment on Zuckerberg's remarks at the time of publication.

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