Consultancy - All's well at ICL.
Fujitsu internal consultants told their jobs are safe despite company's plans to cut 180,000 jobs worldwide.
Hundreds of internal consultants at Fujitsu’s British subsidiary ICL were this week told their jobs were not under threat as part of company plans to axe 9% of its 180,000 global workforce.
The company revealed consulting arm DMR would be ‘less affected’ than their Japanese peers because ICL had already switched its focus from manufacturing to services.
‘We don’t envisage an official redundancy programme and hope most of the losses will come through natural attrition,’ an ICL spokesman said.
ICL has offices in London, Slough, Bracknell, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast but the spokesman was unable to say where most of the estimated 200 UK cuts would be.
The job losses compound a difficult year for ICL, which has been forced to delay its planned #5bn stock market flotation.
Meanwhile, ICL, one of the best-known names in British IT, will be dropped next year when it is replaced by the brand of its Japanese parent company.
PC and memory chip giant Fujitsu said the cuts were in response to the collapse in global demand for computers and other IT goods. It does not expect the market to recover until after next spring.
The company stunned investors last month by forecasting a Y220bn (#1.3bn) consolidated net loss for the year ending 31 March, having previously predicted a Y50bn profit.
More than two-thirds of the losses will take place outside Japan and the group has forecast 900 redundancies in Europe.
Fujitsu suggests these are likely to take place at its IT division, ICL, but analysts believe jobs could be also be vulnerable at its telecoms operation in the UK.
An ICL spokesman added: ‘We have no plans to reduce the number of our internal consultants. None of those workers are definitely earmarked and it is unlikely these areas will be affected.
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‘Some IT consultants may be affected, but we would imagine if any leave they will be replaced, as we are looking to maintain our skill levels. Any cuts would be managed by natural wastage.’
– ICL deal goes ahead despite delay fears www.accountancyage.com/IT/601766
– Fujitsu’s website can be found at www.fujitsu.co.uk.