There is uncertainty over the future of 15 Irish jobs after European internet recruitment firm Stepstone appointed liquidators for its UK subsidiary in Hammersmith, West London with the loss of 135 jobs immediately.
Stepstone's Irish operation is understood to be merely a regional office of its UK operation.
Stepstone's job website for both the UK and Ireland has been down since this morning and the company's shares, which are listed on the Norwegian stock exchange, tumbled by nearly 50% today.
The company is cutting back its European workforce from over 850 to 350 and is to focus on Germany, Belgium and Denmark - where it is still profitable - in a sweeping reorganisation aimed at ending losses.
'The company cannot sustain the current level of investment across Europe,' the company said in a statement and added that it had no plans to expand to new countries in 2001.
StepStone was established in Oslo in 1996. Earlier in the year it employed up to 27 people here after it purchased Irish online recruitment portal JobFinder, but it has struggled to cope with competition from the long-established Irish online jobs site Irishjobs.ie.
