PANASONIC Corp. is getting rid of 15,000 jobs and closing 27 plants around the world after operating profits for the third quarter fell 84% to 26.4 billion yen, when compared to 2007.
On February 4, the Japanese giant published its consolidated financial results for the third quarter of the current fiscal year, for its global business.

The group expects to make a net loss of 380 billion yen (£2.9 billion) in this financial year to March end.

Half of the 15,000 job cuts at Panasonic will be completed by March 2010 and will be in Japan.

In a statement the company said: 'The company's business conditions have worsened particularly since last October, due mainly to the rapid appreciation of the yen, sluggish consumer spending worldwide and ever-intensified price competition.'

AC firms Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric have also recently reported losses brought on by the global downturn.

The financial results for Hitachi (which relate to the whole global firm) were published on February 3 and state that it expects to suffer a loss of 700 billion yen (£5.3 billion) for the year to March 31 2009.

On February 2, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced its third quarter results (for its global business for October 2008-December 2008) and revealed the firm's operating profit fell by 45% to 35.1 billion yen when compared with the same period the previous year. It revised its consolidated earnings forecast for March end from £930m (120 billion yen) to £76.9m (10 billion yen).