Fujifilm to transfer, cut 5,000 jobs

Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp today said it will transfer or cut about 5,000 regular employees based mostly abroad as it anticipates a net loss of $609 million (60 billion yen) for the current business year caused by the global economic turmoil.

The Japanese camera and precision equipment maker expects to log a group operating loss of 90 billion yen in fiscal 2009 on sales of 2.3 trillion yen, down 5.5 per cent from the just-ended fiscal 2008.

"Since last autumn, we have been hit by flagging consumer spending, massive inventory adjustments, deterioration in the real economy and fall in demand at an unimaginable speed," company President Shigetaka Komori said at a press conference in Tokyo.

The company plans to log 145 billion yen in restructuring costs in fiscal 2009 as it slims down by over 20 per cent its administrative and other back-office workforce totaling around 10,000 employees worldwide.

An undetermined number of the 5,000 positions out of its total global workforce of 76,000 employees will be slashed through an early retirement program, while the rest will be reallocated to different divisions.