Matsushita Electric to cut Jobs in Japan

Matsushita Electric to cut Jobs in Japan

Matsushita Electric Industrial Company is planning to cut jobs working in their semiconductor development and production plants. The expected cut is expected to be in the region of 1000 workers. This would mean around 6% of the total workforce would be laid off. The news was released in the public by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun media group.

Nikkei reported in their paper that the company would go about cutting jobs through an early retirement program for their workers. It is being done to raise the cost competitiveness of Matsushita semiconductors used in plasma display panel (PDP) televisions and other digital electronics products.

These latest cuts would bring the total number of job cuts to around 27,000 since the year 2001. It is part of the President Kunio Nakamura’s management reform program to get the company back in shape. The latest cuts should be one of the last big steps in the process to streamline the company.

Matsushita is working hard on getting their resources of its semiconductor business on image processing system chips more competitive in the market and give the competitor hard time. They are also in the process of building a new 130 Billion yen chip plant in Uozu, Toyama Prefecture. It is expected to start functioning by the end of the year.