International. Seeking more efficiency and competitiveness, Asian technology manufacturer Panasonic announced a restructuring plan, which includes the departure of 17,000 workers in the next two years.
The company's executives explained that among the group of employees are people who will retire and others who will move to subsidiaries. Therefore, they will begin to negotiate with the different unions of the company the best way to do the process.
In addition, its workforce increased after the acquisition of 100% of Sanyo's shares, a process that had begun in 2009 and which contributed 160,000 more employees.
The restructuring plan also includes the sale of real estate assets, especially in Japan, and the focus on consumer technology, to make direct competition to its direct rivals in the market, such as LG and Samsung.
The new reduction is in addition to another 17,000 charges that had been eliminated by the company over the past two years.
These changes continue with the renewal of the company, which began last March when the departure of its president, Fumio Ohtsubo, after six years in office was announced. Kazuhiro Tsuga, who has been linked to Panasonic for more than 30 years and who served as the head of the company's TV business, took over as the new president.
