Wednesday January 30, 1:37 PM
Hitachi to cut 4,000 more jobs in Japan
sg.biz.yahoo.com
TOKYO (Reuters) - Hitachi Ltd, Japan's biggest electronics maker, said on Wednesday it plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs in Japan by the end of June via an early retirement scheme, adding to 16,350 global job cuts planned for the year to March.
The addition will bring the sprawling industrial conglomerate's total domestic job cuts to 15,100, a Hitachi spokesman said.
He added that while the cost of the job cuts would be a negative factor for Hitachi's bottom line, the company could not yet say whether it would need to cut its earnings forecasts for the business year to March 31.
The Asahi Shimbun daily said the added job cuts would boost the Hitachi group's restructuring costs this business year by 70 billion yen ($524.6 million), bringing a corresponding rise in its projected group net loss for 2001/02 to 300 billion yen from 230 billion yen.
Hitachi's shares slipped 4.09 percent to 820 yen by the midday break, in line with losses in other Japanese chipmaking shares.
Japan's chip and electronics conglomerates have been shedding tens of thousands of jobs over the past year to slim down as the info-tech slump and fierce competition from foreign rivals battered their bottom lines, especially in semiconductors. |
