Sony to Cut 10,000 Jobs in an Attempt to Regain Profitability

Japanese newspaper Nikkei reports that Sony is cutting 10,000 jobs, which makes up six percent of its global job force, in order to bring the company out of the red and regain profitability. Though this is unfortunate for 10,000 employees, Sony consumers won’t be hit as hard, as the cuts are coming from divisions that will likely have little effect on most of Sony’s operation.

The layoffs come in the wake of a changing of the guard for Sony, as Kaz Hirai formally took over for Howard Stringer as CEO. The report in Nikkei said most of the job cuts will come from Sony’s chemicals and small and midsize LCD divisions. Sony was selling its chemical products division, which accounts for around 3,000 jobs, and last week it merged its Sony Mobile display division, which had around 2,000 jobs, with divisons from Toshiba and Hitachi.

Nikkei also reports that Sony may ask seven of its executive directors, including former CEO Stringer, to return their bonuses, though as one may expect, Sony declined to comment.

Sony projected a net loss of around $2.7 billion for the fiscal year that just ended, helped along by a television business that isn’t as successful as Sony would hope. Luckily for consumers, most of the job loss comes from areas of the company from which consumers won’t see much of a drop in quality.

(via The Chicago Tribune)

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James Plafke