The Japanese tech giant Panasonic has announced it will cut another 17,000 jobs in addition to the 18,000 job losses sustained by the company during the last business year. The proposed job cuts over the next two years will account for 5% of Panasonic’s workforce. Panasonic aims to lower its costs and remain competitive with other Asian rivals; reducing its workforce of 367,000 to 350,000, will make a total of around 35,000 Panasonic job cuts by March 2013.
The chief investment officer at Stats Investment Management in Tokyo, Toru Hashizume, said, “The figure is huge, but so is the company, and for an old-fashioned one like Panasonic, this is a big move.”

Once unequalled, Japan’s consumer electronic firms are now facing increasing competition from cheaper Korean and Chinese producers in particular. Panasonic, producer of Viera and Lumix ranges, is shifting its focus to environmental and energy- related businesses in order to lower competition from Samsung, LG and others in the consumer electronic business.

Panasonic said without the impact of the quake, its financial prediction for this year would have been for an operating profit of 310 billion yen.