Sony to axe 20,000 jobs worldwide

Tuesday, 28 October 2003 12:00 AM

Sony has announced plans to cut 20,000 jobs from its global workforce.

The job losses, representing around 13 per cent of the electronics giant's total worldwide staff, will take place over three years.

The redundancies form part of a massive restructuring plan aimed at tackling sliding profits, which will cost around 335 billion yen (£1.8 billion).

The company announced a surprise loss in the first three months of the year and profits throughout 2003 have proved sluggish as it faces strong competition from cheaper rivals and the strong yen continues to hit exports.

Around 7,000 of the jobs will go from Sony's Japanese workforce. The company has not yet produced breakdowns for its other operations.

Sony UK employs around 4,500 people in manufacturing, sales and marketing. The UK headquarters are based at Brooklands, near Weybridge, in Surrey, and Sony also has factories at Bridgend and Pencoed in Wales.

The company employs about 154,500 people worldwide.

Plans for restructuring include bringing together engineers in the company's home and mobile electronics sectors, and developing a joint venture to strengthen purchase of liquid crystal display panels and develop next-generation TVs.

Sony blamed extra research costs in its video game division and losses from movie box office flops for recent poor quarterly profits.

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