Japanese electronics maker Pioneer Corp said on Friday it had started talks with its labour union over additional job cuts through early retirement, as it seeks ways to deal with a projected record loss this year.
The Nihon Keizai business daily reported earlier that Pioneer would cut 600 jobs in Japan, 1.8 percent of its total world-wide group workforce, by March, and would concentrate more on home theatre systems and other value-added businesses.
Pioneer, which in March unveiled planned job cuts of 2,000, mostly outside Japan, said it could not confirm the report. The scale of the additional restructuring was smaller than the 1,000 job cuts reported by the newspaper last month.
Restructuring hopes briefly triggered a more than three percent rally in Pioneer shares on Friday. The shares closed up 2.58 percent at 1,711 yen, outperforming a 1.92 percent gain in the Nikkei share average
Pioneer, whose plasma TVs and DVD recorders face fierce price competition from bigger players such as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, is due to announce its revival plan next Thursday. Pioneer held 5.1 percent of the global plasma TV market in the July-September quarter, down from 6.9 percent in the same period last year, according to research firm DisplaySearch.
The Tokyo-based firm in October predicted its biggest-ever net loss of 24 billion yen ($199.2 million) for the year ending next March, revising down from its earlier profit estimate of 1 billion yen. The loss has prompted its president and chairman to step down.
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