Panasonic plans to axe 17,000 jobs and 70 plants

Japanese electronics giant Panasonic is to cut a further 17,000 jobs and close up to 70 factories around the world over the next two years in a bid to pare costs and keep up with Asian rivals.

The maker of Viera TVs and Lumix cameras said it was aiming to reduce its workforce of 367,000 at the end of last month to 350,000 by March 2013. The cull comes on top of nearly 18,000 job cuts made in the past business year, for a total of around 35,000 over three years.

Toru Hashizume, chief investment officer at Stats Investment Management in Tokyo, said: "The figure is huge, but so is the company, and for an old-fashioned one like Panasonic, this is a big move."

Company president Fumio Ohtsubo said Panasonic had about 350 manufacturing bases and would look to merge operations where it could.

"I can't say for sure, but I think it's possible we will cut the number of manufacturing bases by 10 or 20 per cent," he said, declining to comment on which countries might see job cuts. A spokesman said the company did not have a figure for the number of countries it operated in since recently taking over some other firms.