And you thought the car industry was copping it...

[SEZ213]

It would appear that no realm is safe. Ricoh (digital camera and office equipment maker) is slashing 10,000 jobs over 3 years...

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/Jap...21204.html?x=0

Japanese office equipment and digital camera maker Ricoh says it plans to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide over three years to turn around sagging business operations.

Ricoh was hit hard by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the strong yen and has struggled to recover in the face of stiff competition.

The cuts from a global workforce of over 100,000, Ricoh's first major wave of job losses, will be made both at home and abroad by March 2014.

The company currently employs 40,000 people in Japan and 68,900 overseas.

Company president Shiro Kondo on Thursday said no area of the company would be exempt from streamlining.

"For example, you might have 10 people working together to develop software that two people could develop. You need to question whether having more people is really speeding things up," Kondo told a news conference, Dow Jones Newswires reported.