Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a Japanese business publication, reports that Japan’s Seiyu chain, which is 37.7 percent owned by Wal-Mart, is considering job cuts that would reduce its full-time labor force by as much as 40 percent over the next three years.
The company currently employs more than 6,000 people on a full-time basis, and would like to get that down to around 3,600, according to the report. It would use attrition and financial incentives to make the cuts, the paper says, and then supplement the remaining employees with part-timers.
Seiyu officials said that no decisions about job cuts have been made.
Wal-Mart has the option of becoming a majority owner of Seiyu by 2007, and has been aggressively working with the retailer to install Wal-Mart systems at the company, with an emphasis on greater efficiency.
The company currently employs more than 6,000 people on a full-time basis, and would like to get that down to around 3,600, according to the report. It would use attrition and financial incentives to make the cuts, the paper says, and then supplement the remaining employees with part-timers.
Seiyu officials said that no decisions about job cuts have been made.
Wal-Mart has the option of becoming a majority owner of Seiyu by 2007, and has been aggressively working with the retailer to install Wal-Mart systems at the company, with an emphasis on greater efficiency.
- KC's View:
- Love ‘em or hate ‘em, this sounds like Wal-Mart. It is hard to imagine, however, that this will engender a great deal of good feeling for the Bentonville Behemoth in an already struggling Japanese economy.
