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To: Tom Simpson who wrote (9074)	12/5/2001 11:22:49 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 9256

focus.aps.org

To: Tom Simpson who wrote (9074)	12/7/2001 7:05:07 AM
From: Sam	Respond to of 9256

Will Matsushita spin off or close down MKE? See below, courtesy of Gus from the SAN thread: UPDATE 2-Matsushita workers rush to leave, costs may soar 12/6/01 10:14 PM Source: Reuters (Recasts, adds analyst comments, detail) By Reed Stevenson TOKYO, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd said on Friday that 10,000 workers had applied for its early retirement scheme as it fights to restore profitability by shedding its guarantee of lifetime employment. Matsushita, losing its grip as the top global consumer electronics maker after its first-half results and full-year forecasts put it behind Sony Corp, said more than 10,000 domestic employees in the group had applied for the scheme by the November 30 closing date. As a result, the daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that Matsushita's losses for the business year to March would widen by 10 billion yen ($80.3 million) on increased costs for the early retirement package. The applicants make up 10 percent of Matsushita's workforce. At the end of October, the maker of the Panasonic and National brands said it expected 8,000 workers to opt for the "Special Life Assistance Program" and projected a 200 billion yen extra charge for the scheme. At that point, 6,400 had applied. "In principle, the company will accept all applications," said Akira Kadota, a manager in Matsushita's public relations department. Japan's sprawling electronics conglomerates have been scrambling to shed jobs as their chip operations wallow in red ink, with Fujitsu Ltd and Toshiba Corp both planning tens of thousands of job cuts and forecasting net losses this business year of more than $1 billion. Matsushita said in a statement it would not confirm reports of additional extraordinary losses or revised outlooks for the full year and that any revision would be announced with third-quarter results in late February. In October, Matsushita Electric forecast a group net loss of 265 billion yen for 2001/02 against a group net profit of 41.50 billion yen a year earlier. NO MORE GUARANTEES Matsushita, which has always prided itself on its culture of lifetime employment, began offering the early retirement package in June to all workers under 58 with 10 years' experience. President Kunio Nakamura, when asked earlier this year whether Matsushita would have to consider laying off workers, said its practice of guaranteed employment was "one of the great things about Matsushita". "They will not be able to take that kind of drastic step," said Tsubasa Securities analyst Yukihiro Yoshida. "People were expecting the early retirement to be of this scale. But the point is Matsushita can improve the structure of its existing businesses," he said. Yoshida said that Matsushita could improve profitability by drawing mobile phone-making subsidiary Matsushita Communication Industrial Co Ltd closer into the group and letting go of the loss-making parts of Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronic Ltd, its VCR, CD-ROM and hard disk drive maker. To improve performance, Kadota said Matsushita had already instituted a yearly salary system for managers and non-union members and was moving the union towards a merit-based system. Of the 10,000-plus workers who applied from its group companies, 74 percent were men and more than 70 percent were over 50, Matsushita said. Of the total, 15 percent were managers. In terms of job type, 60 percent of the applicants were in manufacturing, two percent in research and development and 38 percent in sales and other areas. In terms of compensation, Kadota said that the largest early retirement packages would amount to two and a half times yearly salary for union members. By late afternoon, shares in Matsushita were 1.25 percent higher at 1,618 yen, bouncing back from an earlier drop. The benchmark Nikkei average was down 0.15 percent. ($1=124.52 yen) investor.cnet.com.