The major Japanese companies that operate a lifetime employment policy say that the idea of Western-style lay-offs remains firmly off the agenda, Reuter reports from Tokyo: If times get tough, we may reduce the number of seasonal workers, but we see forcing regular employees to quit as akin to a company going bankrupt, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd president Akio Tanii told reporters; The economy is bad, but we are not in a situation where we will go bankrupt if we don’t lay people off; what we have to do is consider how best to deploy people where they are needed; a report by a private think tank said recently, however, that Japanese firms had 900,000 workers on company payrolls but underemployed in the April to June quarter this year – the highest level ever.
