The Irish operations of America Online (AOL) will escape the brunt of global layoffs which will see the company shed a fifth of its workforce.

The once dominant internet company, whose dot com valuation enabled it to merge with Time Warner in 2000, is set to slash its worldwide workforce from 10,000 to 8,000.

A spokesman for AOL in the Republic said that it was seeking a small number of voluntary redundancies "as part of a global restructuring".

Management told staff about the restructuring yesterday.

It is understood that just 10 voluntary redundancies will be sought at the Citywest facility in Co Dublin, where the company develops applications for its website.

More than 200 staff are employed there working on applications such as AOL's search engine, its Money and Finance channel and its AOL Instant Messenger products.

The spokesman said that he did not foresee "any change to the output or activity of the Dublin operations".

AOL Broadband, a call centre operation in Waterford which employs 750 staff, is unaffected by the corporate announcement this week.

Although it still operates under the AOL brand, that business was sold to Carphone Warehouse when the US company exited the UK market in 2006.