Paypal faces €16m charge on Irish job losses

The main Irish unit of online payments firm PayPal posted a fourfold increase in pretax profits to €54.57 million last year, even as it estimated a charge tied to job losses at its Irish operations could hit €16 million.

A note attached to accounts just filed for 2021 by the Blanchardstown registered firm show that the associated restructuring charges from this year’s job losses “are estimated to be in a range of €13 million to €16 million”.

Pretax profits for PayPal Europe Services Ltd jumped 333 per cent in advance of the group’s move to cut its Irish workforce by 307 jobs during the first quarter of 2022 in Dublin and Dundalk.

The primary objective of the jobs reduction was “to streamline and optimise PayPal’s global operations and enhance operating efficiency,” according to a note to the accounts.

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The surge in pretax profits last year from €12.6 million to €54.57 million followed revenues increasing by 25 per cent from €222 million to €277 million.

Employees at the firm increased by 133 from 2,611 to 2,744 with 1,322 employed in customer support and 1,422 in what the company classed as general and administrative.

Staff costs last year increased by 10 per cent from €158.88 million to €174.14 million, including redundancy costs of €4.5 million.

Directors’ pay totalled €510,000 made up of emoluments of €485,000 and €25,000 in pension contributions.

The directors state that they are satisfied with the performance of the company which is broadly in line with expectations.

They state that increased revenues in 2021 “reflects an increase in the stock based compensation driven by the increase in share price and related increase in cost plus remuneration”.

At the end of December last the firm had shareholder funds of €77.22 million that included accumulated profits of €60.49 million.