Panasonic (NYSE:PC) plans to shed another 10,000 workers by the end of March in a bid to return to profitability.
The Japanese electronics giant trimmed 36,000 workers from its worldwide payroll last year, but said that a fifth of its business units remain unprofitable, while only half are currently meeting operating margin targets, Reuters noted.
Last month, Panasonic said it expected to post a nearly $10 billion loss for fiscal 2013, due in large part to charges from the write-off of its solar, mobile phone and lithium battery businesses.
CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga has set a 5% operating margin goal for each division to be achieved within three years. Company officials said units that appeared unable to meet those goals would be closed or sold starting next year. Panasonic wants to post an operating profit of $2.52 billion in fiscal 2014, which would meet analysts forecasts.
Panasonic currently employs 300,000 worldwide. Standard & Poor’s recently lowered the company’s credit rating to just above junk status. Shares of Panasonic fell fractionally in Wednesday morning trading in New York.
A number of other companies have recently announced plans to shed workers, including:
- Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL) — 2,300 jobs over the next four years.
- UBS (NYSE:UBS) — 10,000 workers over the next three to five years.
- Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE:MSO) will layoff about 12% of its workforce.
- Comcast‘s (NASDAQ:CMCSA) NBCUniversal will eliminate 450 jobs across its operating divisions.
- Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) will lay off 1,550 employees in its native Sweden.
