Downsizing
Sony announced a raft of measures designed to strengthen the company today, including the lay-off of 8,000 (five percent) staff and a ten percent reduction in the number of manufacturing sites by April 2010. Sony blamed the state of the global economy for the move.
It looks like Sony's electronics business has been suffering the most as a result of Bankageddon, a trend that was apparent back in July when Sony revealed that operating income had halved. It has already started reducing production and operating expenses for the division.
This major restructure is designed to create annoual savings of over 100 billion yen by April 2010. It is divided into three main categories:
- Investment reduction - a 30 percent cut in proposed investment in R&D and manufacturing at the electronics business.
- Manufacturing reduction - a ten percent cut in the number of manufacturing sites from the current total of 57. It's not clear whether that amounts to five or six.
- Headcount reduction - a five percent cut in the number of people employed by the electronics business (currently 160,000).