Sony axes 8,000

Sony is to lay off 8,000 workers, according to the AP.

Sony Corp. is slashing 4 percent of its worldwide work force, reining in spending and shutting plants as it tries to ride out a looming worldwide recession that is battering Japan's export-reliant manufacturers. Tokyo-based Sony, which is cutting 8,000 of its 185,000 jobs, said Tuesday it will shut five or six plants — about 10 percent of its 57 factories. Sony also plans to reduce its electronics investments by about one-third by the end of March 2010, although it did not give specific numbers.

That 8,000 people can be such a tiny proportion of a company indicates how hard it is for Sony to maneuver: if you include joint ventures, it employs nearly a quarter of a million people. The cuts will save it $1.1bn and take two years to enact.

Such immense scale lends itself to dark humor: "Sony lays off Rolly division," etc., but it's an expression of problems that Sony's faced for a decade or so: how to become leaner when jobs are for life.

Sony to cut 8,000 jobs, 4 percent of work force [AP]