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Sony Will Cut 8,000 Positions

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The Associated Press

Published: December 10, 2008

TOKYO - Sony Corp. is slashing 4 percent of its worldwide work force, reining in spending and shutting plants as it tries to ride out a looming worldwide recession that is battering Japan's export-reliant manufacturers.

Tokyo-based Sony, which is cutting 8,000 of its 185,000 jobs, said Tuesday that it will shut five or six plants - about 10 percent of its 57 factories. Sony also plans to reduce its electronics investments by about one-third by the end of March 2010, although it did not give specific numbers.

The job cuts are the most drastic here since the U.S. credit crunch hit over the summer. They are a bad twist for Sony, which has been recovering from internal problems in recent years under cost-cutting reforms led by Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer.

Sony said a plant in Dax, France, that makes tapes and other recording media will be among the plants to close, but it declined to list the others. The moves will deliver more than $1.1 billion in savings a year by March 2010, the company said.

Apart from the 8,000 electronics job losses, Hara said Sony would cut at least 8,000 temporary jobs by the end of March 2010. He said temporary workers are not counted in Sony's global work force.

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