E-Trade to cut jobs in Irish operations
03-07-2001
by Rory Kelleher

E-Trade will not proceed with the establishment of a data centre to house its European operations in Ireland and is to lay off 13 of its 20 staff.

A spokeswoman for the company, Bahareh Green said that the technical support division for E-Trade's European operations was closing because of a general downturn in business.

"This is part of a consolidation of our business. We will not be cutting jobs anywhere else in Europe," she said.

The company will not, as reports suggested in January of this year, be establishing an Irish specific E-Trade Web site or operation. Green said this was because many of the major Irish stocks were already listed on the London Stock Exchange and others and the company therefore did not think it was feasible to set up and Irish operation.

The company had based its European technical support in Dublin. However now all of the technical and network support for its European Web sites will now be dealt with staff in each country.

The company, which is one the biggest on-line share dealing brokerages in the world, said recently it would make a pre-tax loss of USD6.8 million for the second quarter of 2001.

E-Trade has been looking for alternative revenue sources to diversify its business and has launched a new on-line mortgage service.

The company also purchased 15,000 customer accounts worth around USD389.7 million from Advanta National Bank which it said would boost its revenues and earnings.

E-Trade has been hit by a slowing US economy with trading and volumes drying up. The company primarily makes its money of commissions on on-line share trading.

Its share price has dropped from a high of USD20.19 to its present level of around USD6.50.