Japan Post says it is eying job cuts to streamline operations
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan Post is considering job cuts as part of efforts to streamline the sprawling national mail operator, which is in the process of being privatised, a company spokesman said Friday.
"We are considering recommending and promoting (early) retirement as part of our cost-cutting efforts, but nothing has been decided yet," said the spokesman, who declined to be named.
The Nikkei business daily reported earlier that Japan Post Holdings Co., which controls the group, plans to cut some 24,000 jobs at its mail delivery and post office units over the four and a half years to March 2012.
Japan Post Service Co. and Japan Post Network Co. will reduce personnel through attrition and voluntary retirements, the newspaper said.
The job cuts, which account for 10 percent of the total workforce at the two units, are part of Japan Post's effort to create a more efficient business structure ahead of the listings of the group units, the report said.
In October, Japan Post began its decade-long long privatisation process, splitting into four units to handle deliveries, savings, insurance and counter services under a holding company that remains fully government owned for now.
Together they have some three trillion dollars in savings and life insurance policies, making the group the world's biggest financial institution.
