Posted on: Saturday, September 1, 2001

Hitachi cutting 14,700 jobs amid mounting losses

Associated Press

TOKYO — Electronics maker Hitachi, which expects to lose more than $1 billion this year, is slashing 14,700 jobs, or 4.3 percent of its work force, to cut costs.

The job cuts announced yesterday are the latest in a series of similar moves by Hitachi's rivals — Toshiba Corp., NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd.

Hitachi also said it expects to post a loss of $1.2 billion instead of the profit of $757 million it had projected earlier.

Hitachi will slash 10,200 jobs in Japan, but 7,200 will be through attrition. Three thousand workers have opted for early retirement.

Most of Hitachi's 4,500 overseas job losses will be in Asia, centered on the closing of three plants — two in Singapore, affecting 2,600 workers, and one in Malaysia employing 550 people.

Reflecting widespread sentiment in Japan, Hitachi officials explaining the revival plan stressed that dismal corporate performance should never immediately hurt jobs.

To cut costs, Hitachi will stop making cathode-ray tubes used in personal computer monitors and will nearly halve its investment in its semiconductor business to $505 million from the planned $1 billion. It took a loss of $673 million as a restructuring cost for this fiscal year.

"The possibility for economic recovery is extremely difficult to read," Hitachi President Etsuhiko Shoyama said. "We cannot hope for positive change anytime soon."