UNCERTAINTY is hanging over the jobs of more than 300 staff at a US-owned steel firm after it slid into administration.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has been appointed joint administrators of Sheffield Forgemasters Rolls, which employs 312 workers at plants in Crewe and in Coatbridge, Scotland.

The company, formed in 1998, supplies cast and forged steel rolls for industrial customers.

It is a subsidiary of Atchison Castings UK, which is also in administration, and whose parent company is Atchison Castings Corporation, based in Kansas.

The move will not affect a further subsidiary, Sheffield Forgemasters Engineering, which has secured ongoing funding and will continue to trade as normal.