Japan Press Weekly

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2012 July 4 - 10 [ECONOMY]

CEOs receiving big money while cutting thousands of jobs

While electrical machinery companies in Japan are cutting their workforces because of their huge deficits, they are paying considerable amounts of remuneration to their directors and corporate executives.

According to Sony Corporation’s financial statement for the fiscal year which ended on March 31, 2012, it reported a loss of 456.6 billion yen, the biggest in its history. The company plans to eliminate over 10,000 workers by selling unprofitable divisions. However, Chairman of the Board Howard Stringer received executive compensation of 449.5 million yen.

Although the figure has drastically dropped from the 863 million yen in the previous year because the chairman waived bonuses linked to business results, more than 400 million yen is one of the highest remuneration packages among corporate managers in Japan.

Panasonic Corporation went into the red to the extent of 772 billion yen, the largest loss that Japanese manufacturing companies have ever had. Still, Executive Advisor Nakamura Kunio received executive pay of 133 million yen and Chairman of the Board Ohtsubo Fumio 113 million, up 7 million and 4 million respectively from the previous year.

The enterprise is on its way to close down unprofitable TV factories and reduce 3,000 - 4,000 of its central staff members from the current 7,000.

Panasonic has already cut 36,170 jobs in last fiscal year, and has not raised employees’ wages for three consecutive years.