Toshiba Corp, the second-largest chipmaker, will tell 39 percent of workers at its semiconductor business to stay home for two to four days by the end of the year to cut costs and trim inventories.
The 12,000 employees include workers at chip plants in Mie, Hyogo and Ohita prefectures, spokesman Kenichi Sugiyama said.
The workers will receive 90 percent of their base wages, he said, confirming a report in the Nihon Keizai newspaper.
It will be the first furlough of chip division workers for Toshiba since 1974.
Toshiba joins NEC Corp. in telling workers to stay home at partial pay to reduce costs, a measure investors say doesn't solve the problem of slumping prices and an excess of chips.
The spot price of 128-megabit dynamic random-access memory chips has plummeted 81 percent to US$1.07 in the past 10 months.
"This is just a short-term remedy," said Sadaji Shibata, who helps manage US$66 billion in securities at Daiwa Asset Manage-ment Co, which holds Toshiba and NEC shares.
"Japan's chipmakers should get rid of their commodity chip plants," Shibata said.
Toshiba may be on course to take more drastic actions. The company may sell or close the business that makes DRAM, the main memory in personal computers, Sugiyama said, confirming a statement made by chairman Taizo Nishimuro to the Financial Times.
Toshiba expects to lose as much as US$1.24 billion at its DRAM division this fiscal year.
Nishimuro told Bloomberg News last month his company is in talks with Infineon Technologies AG, the fourth-biggest memory-chip maker, about a possible merger of their DRAM businesses.
Toshiba's shares fell 6.4 percent to ?467. The shares have declined 39 percent since the beginning of the year.
Japan's four biggest chipmakers are cutting thousands of jobs and idling plants after posting combined losses of ?439 billion (US$3.6 billion) in the six months to Sept. 30.
Toshiba, which expects a loss of ?200 billion this fiscal year amid plummeting chip prices, will save about ?120 million in wages and electricity bills, Sugiyama said.
In Tokyo, administrative, marketing and researcher and development staff will also be affected, he said. Sugiyama declined to say how much the furloughs will reduce production.
The Mie plant makes DRAM chips and other types of memory chips. The Ohita and Hyogo factories make semiconductors used in digital consumer products and communications equipment.
NEC last week said it will tell 6,600 workers at its chip plants in Japan to take several days off this month and next.
The workers will be paid 80 percent of their salaries.
Hitachi Ltd and Fujitsu Ltd, Japan's third- and fourth-biggest chipmakers after Toshiba and NEC, have no plans to furlough workers in their semiconductor businesses, Hitachi spokesman Kenichiro Mizoguchi and Fujitsu spokeswoman Chiaki Kuwahara said.
Toshiba employed about 30,000 workers at its chip business as of March 31.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source