NTT to reshuffle 100,000 workers

Thursday, July 12, 2001 at 18:00 JST TOKYO — Japan's dominant carrier Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp is set to adopt a plan that would transfer 100,000 employees to less-paid internal jobs and cut labour costs by 15-30%, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said that NTT had agreed in principle with its labour union to shift the workers, some 60% of its total workforce, to newly created subsidiaries.

Former state telecoms monopoly NTT is one of Japan's largest employers and is struggling to cut costs as Japan opens up its telecoms market, the world's second biggest, to competition.

But competitors say that NTT is too sheltered and must be dismantled and fully privatised, which would inevitably lead to direct job cuts.

Of the total, 60,000 will be moved from NTT's local phone service units NTT East Corp and NTT West Corp, while another 40,000 will be moved from nine of their subsidiaries as early as next spring.

An NTT East spokesman said talks between the management and the labour union remain unresolved.

"My understanding is that negotiations are still going on and nothing has been decided," he said.

The paper said the restructuring plans will be accepted by a labour union meeting scheduled at the end of August, and those to be transferred will receive 15 to 30% pay cuts.

NTT has resisted initiating layoffs but said at its recent shareholders meeting that it was willing to transfer about 60,000 people within the organisation to slash personnel costs.

NTT East has a total of 53,700 employees while unprofitable NTT West had 58,150 at the end of March.

The personnel reshuffle will target those over 51 while employees below that age will be given the option of being seconded to a subsidiary.

Hit by rate cuts in local calls, NTT West is expected to post an operating loss of 84 billion yen ($675.9 million) while NTT East is likely to post an operating profit of 27 billion yen for the business year to March 2002. (Reuters News)

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=4&id=42933

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 12, 2001