Japan / Panasonic To Cut 10K More Workers

The Japanese consumer electronics industry continues to feel the squeeze in the economy, with one of the more painful effects being mass layoffs of workers. In the latest development, Panasonic Corp. says that it will reduce its workforce by 10,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year, which completes in March 2013. The company had already warned that it will post losses of $10 billion for the full year, because of writeoffs in its mobile, solar panel and lithium batter businesses.

The mobile business in particular has been seeing some tough times, with Panasonic Mobile reportedly preparing to pull out of the European market altogether, leaving it covering only Asia going forward.

While Panasonic has yet to make an official statement about the 10,000 layoffs, CFO Hideaki Kawai made the plans public in an interview with Reuters. They are part of a wider strategy to reach operating profits of $2.52 billion (¥200 billion) in the next three years. At the moment a fifth of its 100 business units are losing money, and there are plans for some of these to also be sold off, too…

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via Japanese Hardware Layoffs Continue: Panasonic To Cut 10K More Workers In The Next 5 Months | TechCrunch.