Sony Corp, the world's second-largest maker of consumer electronics, plans to cut as many as 20,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce, by March 2006 as it stops making televisions in Japan and reduces administration costs, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
"It is true Sony is planning layoffs," spokesman Koichi Izukura said in Tokyo where the company is based, adding he was unable to provide details.
Sony, whose profit plunged 98 percent in the three months ended June 30, will include the cuts in a plan to be announced on Oct. 28, the newspaper reported.
Sony, which had 161,000 workers at the end of March, until now has resisted cuts that have claimed as many as 70,000 jobs at electronics companies such as NEC Corp, Fujitsu Ltd and Toshiba Corp the past three years.
The cuts would follow a vow by chief executive officer Nobuyuki Idei to increase profit margins to 10 percent from 4 percent after costs for the overhaul are subtracted.
"Consumer-electronics makers need to cut costs because it's becoming much more difficult to continue to grow sales," said Makoto Suzuki, who manages the equivalent of US$137 million at Chuo Mitsui Asset Management Co, including Sony.
Led by Idei, Sony is relying on new products such as a hand-held game player and the PSX, a type of game console with a hard disk drive and television tuner, to stimulate sales.
Idei will attend next week's meeting when Sony unveils its reorganization as will Sony president Kunitake Ando.
The reorganization comes after Sony shocked investors and analysts in April by reporting a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss after sales at its game business fell by 25 percent and demand for stereos and TVs slumped.
The maker of the PlayStation 2 video-game console, second behind only Matsushita Electric Industrial Co in sales of consumer electronics, has been late in introducing the kinds of job cuts taken by some of its competitors.
Still, an overhaul at some of the Sony's most unprofitable businesses is already underway. Sony Music Entertainment Inc, the company's New York-based music unit, predicted in March it will save about US$100 million a year by cutting 1,000 workers or about 10 percent of its workforce.
Sony in May said it will spend ?140 billion (US$1.29 billion) by March 31 to shed jobs and close factories.
The plant closings, in part, are intended to boost profit at Sony's electronics unit, which reported a 74 percent decline in fiscal first-quarter operating profit.
The company may cut 1,500 to 2,000 domestic jobs, most of them administrative workers at the parent company, the Nihon Keizai said, without saying where it got the information.
Sony also intends to pull out of "unprofitable and non-strategic" operations to pare costs, it said.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS