Toshiba Corp. is considering slashing several thousands of jobs worldwide as it aims to restructure its loss-making, television, personal computer and white goods businesses, sources close to the matter said Tuesday.
The scandal-hit conglomerate is expected to solicit early retirements and to transfer workers, the sources said, adding that the company could unveil such plans on Monday.
The envisaged job cuts are part of Toshiba’s broader restructuring following revelations this year that the company inflated profits over a period of almost seven years.
The downsizing of Toshiba’s Ome complex in west Tokyo, which develops TVs and PCs, is also under consideration, the sources said.
In its global TV business, Toshiba is expected to sell a plant in Indonesia to a foreign maker.
A plant in Indonesia that produces washing machines will likely be sold as well, sources have said.
As of March, Toshiba’s lifestyle division in charge of white goods, TVs and PCs had over 24,000 employees both in Japan and abroad. The division logged a ¥42.5 billion operating loss for the first half of fiscal 2015.
Toshiba has already decided to withdraw from its image sensor and white light-emitting diode business, which would lead to some 2,300 job cuts and transfers.
Units to be axed include its Tokyo-listed office equipment subsidiary Toshiba Tec Corp., separate sources said.
By selling its majority stake in Toshiba Tec, a manufacturer of information terminals for retail stores, the conglomerate plans to further focus on its mainstay businesses, such as nuclear power and semiconductors, the sources said.
Toshiba Tec incurred a group net loss of ¥7.4 billion for the first half of fiscal 2015 due to its sluggish point-of-sale system business, delivering a blow also to its struggling parent company.
Toshiba Tec and its subsidiaries employ around 20,000 people.
Toshiba President Masashi Muromachi has said he will proceed with restructuring “without limits” after the accounting scandal led the firm to revise downward its profits totaling ¥224.8 billion on a pretax basis from April 2008 to December 2014.
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