Panasonic Announces 17,000 Job Cuts
Panasonic has announced a decision to cut 17,000 of its employees.
Japanese consumer electronics giant Panasonic has said it will cut five percent of its workforce as part of efforts to restructure and streamline the company and recover losses from Japan’s March 11 earthquake. The cuts, expected to take up to two years to complete, will reduce the company’s numbers to 350,000. Currently, Panasonic’s headcount is just shy of 367,000 people. Also on the cards is the closure of up to 20 percent of Panasonic’s manufacturing facilities.
The Financial Times cites Panasonic as saying it has set aside Y110bn in restructuring costs for the current financial year, while the cuts will cost the company about Y160bn ($2bn) between now and 2013. However, the restructuring could add Y6bn to this year’s fiscal operating profit and a whopping T60bn to next year’s.
According to the Associated Press, Japan’s disastrous March events cost Panasonic’s operating profit for the year ended March 31 21 billion yen ($258 million).

A lot of this could be absorbed with a recruitment freeze, natural attrition, voluntary redundancy, etc.
17000 sounds a lot, but compared to the total workforce it's not that much.
Very few will be canned involuntarily.
IIRC, Matsushita renamed itself, "Panasonic" a few years back due to brand recognition.
I think they are talking about worldwide reduction. Overseas they have less people, but I don't think they need 350k just in japan. Asian manufacturing everywhere probably makes up a lot of it.