Accelerating restructuring, Toshiba will lay off 4,000 employees in Japan

Difficult Japanese industrial giant Toshiba plans to cut 4,000 jobs in Japan as part of a restructuring plan, the company said on Thursday.

Toshiba said on Thursday it would lay off as many as 4,000 jobs as part of its efforts to take operating profit as a percentage of revenue, aiming to achieve a 10% operating margin (now just over 1%) within three years, AFP and Jiji Press reported.

The company will also move its headquarters from the Hamamatsu district region in Tokyo to Kawasaki, outside the Japanese capital, in the first half of fiscal 2025.

The announcement came after the company's shares were privatized by a consortium after multiple crises and were delisted in December.

The layoffs will be achieved in November by offering voluntary early retirement to employees over 50 who meet specific criteria.

Mass layoffs are rare in Japan, but such early retirement plans or voluntary layoffs have increased dramatically.

The former home appliance giant fell from the altar

The Toshiba Company dates back to 1875. Toshiba, once Japan's manufacturing giant that supplies from semiconductor chips to nuclear equipment, is once Japan's largest semiconductor maker and one of the world's largest manufacturers of PC, home appliances and medical devices, but has been hit by scandals and heavy losses since the accounting scandal in 2015.

The company then suffered a disastrous blow to its move into the nuclear business, forcing it to write down $6.3 billion and sell its "crown jewel" memory chip business (Kai Xia Holdings).

Westinghouse Electric (Westinghouse), a Toshiba nuclear power company, filed for bankruptcy in 2017 after years of severe losses due to soaring safety costs.

Toshiba has been trying to cut costs from its vast business and seeks to focus on its infrastructure and digital technology businesses. Toshiba was delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange in late December, putting the end to its 74-year listing.