Subject: [cwj 105] Deregulation hits jobs in Japan's oil industry
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 13:12:30 -0700
Seq: 105
Deregulation hits jobs in Japan's oil industry September 18, 2000 TOKYO, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Deregulation has taken a toll on Japan's oil industry workforce, carving about 12,300 jobs from the sector since 1995, an industry body said on Monday. The Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) said that people working for Japanese oil distributors and oil refiners numbered about 24,000 in March 2000, down about 34 percent from 36,300 in March 1995, a year before the sector was liberalised. The prospect of a new era of tougher competition following deregulation, introduced in April 1996, forced companies to cut staff and make other cost-cutting measures to survive. The industry has also been hit by the recent high crude costs, which have triggered further job losses. Many companies have been unable to pass on the higher crude costs into product prices, instead relying on cost cutting to stem the losses. Just in the past year alone, the industry's workforce has shrunk by about 16 percent, and with oil prices hovering near 10-year highs many companies are planning further cuts. The country's largest oil distributor and refiner, Nippon Mitsubishi Oil Corp , has said it planned to cut the number of its staff in group companies to about 4,100 by March 2002 from about 4,600 last March. However, it said that it may achieve its target at an earlier date if the number of its employees falls at the current pace. Cosmo Oil Co Ltd , also a leading refiner, said in its most recent earnings report issued in May that it planned to cut group employees to 1,500 by March 2003 from current levels of about 2,000. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Corporate Watch in Japanese is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. ------------------------------------- Corporate Watch in Japanese Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC) P.O. Box 29344 San Francisco, CA 94129 USA Tel: 1-415-561-6472 Fax: 1-415-561-6493 Email: cwj@corpwatch.org URL: http://www.corpwatch-jp.org ------------------------------------- ______________________ The Corporate Watch in Japanese http://www.corpwatch.org/japan (CWJ) mailing list is a moderated email list in English designed to connect activists campaigning against Japanese corporations and investments around the world. * To unsubscribe from the CWJ mailing list, send an email to majordomo@jca.apc.org with text "unsubscribe cwj". To subscribe to the CWJ mailing list, send a message to majordomo@jca.apc.org with the text "subscribe cwj" * The CWJ mailing list is NOT intended for wide distribution. If you would like to post messages from this list somewhere else, we ask that you first contact us at cwj@corpwatch.org ______________________