Toshiba To Cut Up To 4,000 Jobs In Japan

Troubled Japanese industrial giant Toshiba said Thursday that it plans to cut up to 4,000 jobs domestically as part of a restructuring programme

The troubled Japanese industrial giant Toshiba announced on Thursday that it plans to cut up to 4,000 domestic jobs as part of a restructuring program.

This announcement follows the delisting of the company’s shares in December, after it was taken private by a consortium in the wake of multiple crises.

The job reductions will be achieved by November through voluntary early retirement for employees aged over 50 who meet specific criteria.

“It was a tough decision for the management to make. But we believe these measures are essential to putting Toshiba back on the trajectory of recovery and growth,” a company spokeswoman told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Large-scale layoffs are rare in Japan, but the use of early retirement schemes or voluntary redundancy has risen sharply.

The company also aims for an operating profit of 380 billion yen ($2.5 billion) and a return on sales of 10 percent in fiscal 2026, Bloomberg News reported. Additionally, Toshiba will move its head office functions from Tokyo’s Hamamatsucho area to Kawasaki, outside the Japanese capital, in the first half of fiscal 2025.

Toshiba, tracing its roots back to 1875, evolved into a vast conglomerate in the 20th century, becoming synonymous with Japan’s postwar economic revival. It became a household name both in Japan and globally, producing everything from early laptop computers and elevators to nuclear power stations and microchips.

However, Toshiba has faced numerous crises in recent years, including a major accounting scandal in 2015 and billions of dollars in losses from its U.S. nuclear subsidiary, Westinghouse. Pressure from activist shareholders and a takeover offer from private equity group CVC led to aborted attempts to split the company into three and then into two.

Finally, in March 2023, Toshiba’s board accepted a takeover bid worth around $14 billion from a consortium that included around 20 Japanese banks and other firms. Its shares were delisted in December after being traded on the Tokyo bourse for more than 70 years.

This saga has been closely watched in business circles for clues about the future of other large, diversified conglomerates in Japan and elsewhere.