KARUNA SHINSHO, CNN ANCHOR, ASIA TONIGHT: Japan's technology sector is coming under severe pressure from the global slowdown. Toshiba confirmed today it's cutting jobs. Hitachi is reportedly planning a similar move. Rebecca MacKinnon has more on the pain in the corridors of Japan Inc.</s>REBECCA MACKINNON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another Japanese high-tech giant is cutting fat. By March 2004 Toshiba will have 18 thousand fewer employees, making it 10 percent leaner.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We made this action plan based on the recognition that we have to reform our business from the bottom.</s>MACKINNON: Executives say the global drought in technology demand is the main reason for Toshiba's $960 million loss this year, so the doctor has ordered a lifestyle change.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is time for industrial restructuring to prepare for the real IT revolution when the IT economy and the real economy will merge.</s>MACKINNON: In Japan's tech sector, survival now means reinvention. Last week, Fujitsu announced it will radically restructure and cut 16 thousand jobs. NEC has also lowered its corporate earnings forecast, announcing it will cut 4 thousand workers. Japanese press reports say Hitachi will lay-off 20 thousand people, reports the company will not confirm. For all these companies, semiconductor plants are doing the worst.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have been perceived as the successful players, and therefore they are very slow to change, reluctant to change the way they've been used to doing things, leaving problems up to very late in the day. So they have to deal with all these things all at once.</s>MACKINNON (on camera): And it's not just the tech sector. All at once, corporate Japan is starting to get rid of express employees. For the first time since they started counting in 1953, Japan is facing a record unemployment rate of 5 percent. Rebecca MacKinnon, CNN, Tokyo.
Japanese High-Tech Giants Cutting Fat