Lay off: Japanese office equipment maker Ricoh to cut workforce by 10000

Japanese office equipment maker Ricoh plans to cut headcount by 10,000 from its workforce of around 109,000 to help boost its operating profit by about $1.7 billion.

The move will help it boost operating profit by about 140 billion yen ($1.7 billion) by March 2014, the company said in a statement.

Ricoh also said it sees restructuring costs coming to about 60 billion yen in the two years to March 2013.

The decision to reduce its workforce by almost 10 percent will likely include several thousand job cuts from the company's first large-scale retrenchment in Japan, the Nikkei daily said.

The Ricoh group has about 40,000 employers in Japan and nearly 70,000 workers overseas, the business daily said.

The company which manufactures copiers and other office automation equipment saw its group net profit plunge to 6.5 billion in the year ended March 2009, compared with more than 100 billion yen a year ago, hurt mainly by the global financial crisis, the paper said.

The company expects profit to rise this year, but profit levels remains low because of a stronger yen and fierce competition, the Nikkei reported.

( Source: Reuters, CNBC )

Posted in: Charting Asia