The slow economy has made its impact felt on many majors across the globe, resulting in trimming workforce headcounts to be able to sustain the market volatility. The latest company joining the trend of job cuts is Japanese electronic major Fujitsu, planning to slash 1,800 jobs in the UK in early 2017.
The reason for this job cut has nothing to do with Brexit, the company said. The job losses across UK offices is in a way to compete better with foreign rivals who offer IT services cheap. Trade Unions call this cut, a “hammer blow” to Fujitsu’s workforce.
The Japanese IT equipment and services company said it needed to become more efficient, as companies moved storing their data from its big mainframes on to remote servers, FT reports. The company seems to be facing competition from nimble start-ups and Amazon web services, that hosts data in giant centres far from company premises, as well as suffering a shift from desktop to mobile devices.
Fujitsu which has currently 14,000 staffers across UK is into a range of businesses, from software services to providing air conditioning units. The company has many offices across UK including those in Manchester, Belfast, Crewe, Bracknell, Solihull, Wakefield and Warrington. According to sources, the company has not yet finally decided on the office, where the jobs will be cut.
In a statement by the company, Fujitsu said, “it is planning a “transformation programme” which will enable it to “better support customers in the era of digital transformation.”
Further, the company plans to streamline operations to remain competitive in the market. The proposed measures include changes that would result in a reduction of upto 1,800 jobs in the UK. The company will consult with staff in the coming months and job cuts will be staggered over a period of 12 to 18 months.
Ian Tonks, of the Unite trade union told BBC: “This is a hammer blow for these hardworking employees who have given their all to make the UK subsidiary highly profitable. It is not good news for the UK economy as the company says that it intends to offshore many of these jobs, with increased automation also responsible for job losses.”
Fujitsu also advised its employee representative forum of plans to restructure the organisation in order to provide better service and respond more quickly to customer needs. The layoffs amount to around 13 percent of its workforce in Britain and Ireland, where it claims to be the biggest Japanese employer with some 14,000 staff.
The only assurance provided by a spokesperson of Fujitsu to AFP was that, “no jobs would go before 2017 and Fujitsu would be able to give clearer details on job losses next year.”
