Fujitsu cuts 4,500 jobs worldwide

Japanese electronics giant Fujitsu is set to cut a further 4,500 jobs worldwide by the end of March next year.

While around 4,000 of the losses will come from plants outside Japan it is not known whether Fujitsu facilities in Northern Ireland will be affected by the decision.

The company, which revealed it has now gone into the red, blamed the current world economic slowdown, which has spread from the United States to the Far East for its current predicament. Information technology investment has also plunged while global demand for mobile phones and personal computers have been extremely poor. Fujitsu has already announced thousands of losses this year in a bid to tackle the ongoing problem.

Financially, the company reported a net loss of 174.7 bn yen ($1.4bn) for the six months to 30 September 2001 compared with a profit of 17.2bn yen for the same period of last year.

While the company dismayed IT analysts earlier in the year by hanging onto its full year forecast it finally retreated in July, predicting a full year net loss of 220bn yen.

Now it sees that loss climbing to 350bn yen. (MB)