The Japanese site Nikkei reports about a plan from Nikon to cut 1,000 jobs in Japan (10% of the entire workforce in Japan). At first Nikon officially debunked the information and wrote:
Although Nikon is constantly studying various management options including headcount rationalization for strengthening company’s profitability mainly of Semiconductor Lithography and Imaging Products Businesses, nothing has been decided at this time.
But hours later Nikon released a new note (PDF file here):
Based on the above initiatives to rationalize headcount, Nikon will be announcing a voluntary retirement program of approximately 1,000 employees. Eligible applicants and detailed conditions will be announced once officially finalized.
That really sounds like a huge mess!
For fact we know that Nikon had a 41% operating profit drop in Q2 and had to cut the DSLR years sales forecast from 6.55 million to 6.20 million. Also the other Nikon businesses like lithography machines and precision instruments are doing worse than expected.
While all companies are reporting sales drop Nikon company Nikon as a whole is way more “photo-industry” dependent than other companies.