Tokyo (AFP) – Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, which supplies batteries to Tesla, said Friday it will target 10,000 job cuts worldwide as part of efforts to boost profitability. The cuts, which represent around four percent of the group’s workforce of nearly 230,000, will be implemented mainly in the current financial year to March, it said. Panasonic said it would “thoroughly review operational efficiency at each group company, mainly in sales and indirect departments”. It will “reevaluate the numbers of organisations and personnel actually needed”, a statement said.
“This measure targets 10,000 employees (5,000 in Japan and 5,000 overseas) at consolidated companies,” and will be executed “in accordance with the labour laws, rules, and regulations of each country and region”. Panasonic became a global household name in the latter half of the 20th century, pioneering electronic appliances from rice cookers to televisions to video recorders. The Osaka-based conglomerate is a major battery supplier for Elon Musk’s US electric vehicle maker Tesla and also operates in the housing, energy and auto sectors.
Panasonic in February outlined a management reform programme to resolve “various structural issues” at the company. “Through the current management reform, the company aims to improve profit by at least 150 billion yen ($1 billion),” it said Friday. In its full-year earnings report, also released Friday, Panasonic forecast a 15 percent decline in net profit this year, and an eight percent slump in sales. In the financial year to March 31, 2025, the group logged a 17.5 percent decline in net profit to 366 billion yen.
Panasonic is facing “ongoing business environment changes (such as) a slowdown in demand for EVs,” it said. As for US trade tariffs, “their impact is not factored into this forecast,” Panasonic added. “The company continues to monitor the tariff situation and aims to minimize the resulting impact by taking measures from both short-term and medium- to long-term perspectives.”
In an interview published in April, Panasonic Holdings CEO Yuki Kusumi told Japan’s Nikkei newspaper that personnel cuts would be necessary, without detailing their scale. Job cuts would be needed “in order for us to perform at a competitive level against other firms,” he told the Nikkei. In Panasonic’s history, the group has also gradually expanded its headcount during profitable periods, Kusumi stressed.
© 2024 AFP
