Blighty evades Fujitsu's staff-slashing samurai sword

Fujitsu's workers in UK and Ireland will be spared the axe after the global tech corp prepared to lay off 5,000 employees. British and Irish staff will avoid the redundancies because they met sales and profits expectations.

The Japanese electronics monster is undergoing a substantial shakeup: yesterday it announced it will spin out its chip-making biz and shift 4,500 workers to Panasonic and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.

But it also revealed that its Fujitsu Technology Solution biz is not firing all cylinders - it will report an operating loss for fiscal 2013 - and thus it plans to shed 5,000 employees in countries including Japan.

Fujitsu boss Masami Yamamoto wants to "address increased demand in hardware" and attach more software and services to sales to boost margins. Officer and managers are going to take a pay cut, and the dividend for the current financial year is to be cut.

But a spokesman at Fujitsu said the output of the UK and Ireland businesses was "positive with orders in the first three quarters up 15 per cent".

He added they had enjoyed "six consecutive quarters of profit and are on track for a 16 per cent year-on-year increase in operating profit for this financial year".

As a result, there will be "no impact" on the local operation, "the restructuring is around Fujitsu Technology Solution in central Europe, Middle East, Africa and India". ®