Toyota is hiring 800 contract workers in Japan in its first such job increase in more than a year amid signs of a global recovery led by brisk sales of its Prius hybrid, the world’s No. 1 automaker said yesterday.
Most will start working next month at Toyota Motor Corp’s Tsutsumi plant, central Japan, which makes the Prius and other models for the Japanese market.
Toyota now employs 1,300 contract workers in Japan, down from the peak of 11,600 employed in June 2005 when auto sales were booming.
Such workers are hired for limited periods unlike the 70,000 full-time workers in Japan, who are guaranteed “lifetime employment.”
Toyota reduced its contract workers amid the global slump in auto sales by not renewing their contracts or promoting them to full-time.
The Japanese automaker employs more than 300,000 workers worldwide.
Toyota has been struggling since global sales plunged last year.
It stopped hiring contract workers in Japan in June last year.
The maker of the Lexus luxury model and Camry sedan racked up its worst loss ever of ¥436.9 billion (US$4.6 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31.
It has projected an even worse fiscal year through March next year, although analysts are expecting that to be revised to a better forecast now there are signs sales may be picking up.
Toyota has been reducing workers in other nations to cut costs.
Last month, Toyota said it is shutting the California factory it ran with General Motors for 25 years — the first time it was closing a major auto assembly plant ever.
The Fremont, California-based New United Motor Manufacturing Inc, which employs about 4,600 workers, is set to be closed in March next year, unless another company steps in to keep it going. Toyota said it will move production to its other plants in the US, Canada and Japan.
Toyota said the latest hiring will replace the overtime workers in Japan have had to do to keep up with demand. Recruitment will favor former employees, it said in a statement.
“The decision to hire the contract employees reflects gradually recovering global auto sales,” company spokesman Paul Nolasco said.
“We want to be prepared,” he said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS