01/30 01:07
Hitachi Plans to Cut 4,000 Additional Jobs by June (Update4)
By Minoru Matsutani, Yoshifumi Takemoto, Mariko Iwasaki, Taizo Hirose and Ryoko Imaizumi
quote.bloomberg.com
Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Hitachi Ltd., Japan's largest private employer, is planning to cut an additional 4,000 workers by June, bringing total job cuts to 6 percent of its workforce.
Hitachi will offer severance payments of as much as 2 1/2 times the annual income of workers 40 years of age or older who choose to quit, spokeswoman Emi Takase said. The company said it can't calculate whether the cuts will widen its full-year loss forecast of $1.7 billion because the deadline to apply for the offer extends past the fiscal year's March 31 end.
Tokyo-based Hitachi and other Japanese chipmakers, which were reluctant to scrap unprofitable businesses and shut production lines, will be slow to recover from a drop in personal computer sales and mobile-phone shipments, investors said. Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. yesterday widened their full-year loss forecasts as losses mount at their chip businesses.
``Japanese chipmakers were a bit more optimistic than overseas rivals when the chip industry entered its downturn,'' said Makoto Sakuma, who manages 100 billion yen ($754 million) in assets at Asahi Life Investment Management Co., which holds Hitachi shares. ``That caused the Japanese to lag behind in restructuring, setting them up to benefit later from a rebound.''
For the year, Hitachi will take a charge of 110 billion yen to pay for job cuts, it said in October. The company will begin accepting applications for the severance payments on Feb. 21.
Hitachi's shares fell 3.2 percent to 828 yen. They've declined about 14 percent in the past month. The plan was earlier reported in the Asahi newspaper. |
