Restructuring plans in electronics industry will see dozens of jobs go

Japan's leading electronics manufacturers, encouraged by the government's "structural reform" policy which calls on companies to create more profits and close down unprofitable units, have recently announced mass restructuring plans, using the "IT recession" as the excuse.

Following Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.'s decision to reduce its personnel by 5,000 and NEC Corporation's plan to cut 4,000 jobs, Fujitsu Limited on August 20 announced a plan to decrease 16,400 employees on the pretext of a global downturn of corporate IT investment and a slump in individual demand.

Fujitsu said it will gain 400 billion yen in operating profits in 2003 as a result of the restructuring scheme by cutting the fixed cost by 100 billion yen annually.

Describing this as a direct consequence of the Koizumi Cabinet's "structural reform" and a blatant attack on workers, Nakayama Morio, the Electronics Industry Workers' Conference secretary, said that the electronics industry competition for survival at the sacrifice of workers is facilitated by the trade unions shifting further to right.

He pointed out that all those companies reported big profit gains in March 2001 but are now worried about considerable profit falls. "This is because Japan's electronics industry is dependent on the U.S. economy," he said.

Stressing that workers can't live without jobs, he called for opposition to the profit-first corporate restructuring scheme. (end)