Japan's Ricoh to cut 10,000 jobs over three years

TOKYO: Japanese office equipment and digital camera maker Ricoh said Thursday it plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide over three years to turn around sagging business operations, media reports said.

Ricoh was hit hard by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the strong yen and has struggled to recover in the face of stiff competition.

The cuts from a global workforce of over 100,000, Ricoh's first major wave of job losses, would be made both at home and abroad by March 2014, the Nikkei financial daily and Dow Jones Newswires reported.

The Nikkei earlier said Ricoh also aims to consolidate production of toners and other products in Asia at a factory in Thailand, and that it plans to boost its projector and LED-lighting businesses.

The company saw its group net profit cave in sharply in recent years -- from more than 100 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in the year to March 2008 to 6.5 billion yen a year later, said the Nikkei.

Ricoh in its mid-term business plan announced Thursday said it aims to achieve group sales of 2.4 trillion yen in fiscal 2013, which ends in March 2014, by expanding market share in emerging countries.

It also aims at an operating profit of 210 billion yen, the Nikkei said.

The company plans to maintain capital spending at the current level, which would be 200 billion yen over the three years.

The company now employs 40,000 people in Japan and 68,900 overseas.

Ricoh's stock surged 7.2 percent in Tokyo to 911 yen on the news Thursday.

"Ricoh has a strong global presence, so their labour contracts are more lax than (those of) traditional Japanese firms, and it's therefore easier for them to cut staff as a way to trim costs," Tatsunori Kawai, chief strategist at kabu.com, told Dow Jones Newswires.

He said that a 10 percent cut "is huge for Ricoh and very bold".

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011